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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 
Tr H-l 7 — 

Cliap.„_:_^. Copyright No.. 



UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 



LIFE AND ADVENTURES 



OF 



John Gaskins, 

IX THE 

EARLY HISTORY OF NORTHWEST 
ARKANSAS. 

_____ -EB 3 189b 



;M 



»W>: 



True Tales by an Old Hunter 



PRINTED AND FOR SALE BY THE AUTHOR 
Eureka Springs, Arkansas. 



LIFE AND ADVENTURES 



OF 



JOHN GASKINS 



IN THE 



EARLY HISTORY OF NORTHWEST 
ARKANSAS. 



' 3 18 



JOHN QASKINS. 




COPYRIGHT, 1893, BY THE AUTHOR 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 



INTRODUCTORY. 

Page 

The Discovery of Eureka Springs " " 5 

Something About Bears - - - - 13 

What Dr. Martin Says 15 

CHAPTER I. 

Introduction - - - - - - "I7 

Cowan's Bear Story - - - - - 19 

Ferocious Wild Beasts - - - - - 20 

CHAPTER II. 

My First Panther ----- 3^ 
Thomas and the Bear ----- 27 

CHAPTER III. 

The Cloud Burst - - - - - '29 

"chapter IV. 

Big Game in the Osage Mountains - - 33 

Two Mysterious Wolves - - - - 3c) 

CHAPTER V. 

A Four-Tined Buck - - - - - 43 

A Buck That Was Not Dead . - - 45 



TABLE OF CONTENTS. 

CHAPTER VI. 

My Kansas Trip . • _ - - ^y 

A Panther at Our Rock House - - - 48 

A Hot Fight With a Bear - - - - 49 

Bears are Too Numerous - - _ - ^^ 

CHAPTER VII. 

My First Bear Hunt 56 

Five Bears In Two Days - - - - 59 

CHAPTER VIII. 

My Bear Chase ---._. 6^ 

Three Indiana Boys ----- 68 

Another Big Hunt ------ ^3 

Jimmy Tomlin's Adventure _ - _ ^^ 

Catching the Cubs - - - - - 79 

Five Swamp Bears ----- 84 

An Exciting Story ----- 85 

A Fruitless Chase - - - . - - 8S 

"Preacher" Goes on the Retired List - - 90 

CHAPTER IX. 

A Catamount - - - - - 92 

The Largest Bear I Ever Saw . - - 95 

With Uncle Alvah Agam - - - - 99 

The Irishman and the Bear ' - - - 105 

A Bear Chase --.-_- 107 

Wolves and Puppies - . - - J09 

Squire Farley's First Bear - - - - 112 



INTRODUCTORY. 



THE DISCOVERY OF EUREKA SPRINGS. 



As I was one of the first settlers in the country, liv- 
ing along the creek three miles below Eureka Springs 
for thirty-eight years, I will tell something about the 
discovery of that place. 

I had hunted all over these mountains — killed bears 
and panthers and many other wild animals in nearly 
every gulch or cave in that vicinity. I have killed 
nine bears in the hollow near the Dairy wSpring and 
many deer, for that was always a good plare for 
them. My regular stopping place was the Rock 
House, or cave, above the Basin Spring in which 
Alvah Jackson camped on his hunting trips. We of- 
ten camped there, using the Basin water for our coffee 
never imagining it was more than pure water, until 
Uncle Alvah camped there with them. They simp- 
ly dipped the water up from the little basin. 

Then Uncle Alvah began to use the water for other 
diseases, finding that it was beneficial. He induced 
Judge vSanders and Mr. Whitson to go there in the 



vi INTRODUCTORY. 

summer of '79. Then others began to come and 
were cured and benefitted, the whole sides of the 
mountains were covered with tents. 

I was there every day, watching- and wondering. 
The people crowded around the Basin spring (that 
being the only spring at first, though in a short time 
others were discovered) dipping up the water that 
poured down over the rock into the little basin, one 
waiting for another. 

I would watch for hours, wondering how^ it could 
be that I had used the water so long and now to see 
the crowds gathering there for the cure of all kinds of 
diseases. Many who were not able to walk w^ould 
use the water and be able in two or three weeks to 
climb the mountains, at that time steep and rugged 
and w^ithout roads. Wagons w^ould turn over in try- 
ing to drive too near the springs. Once on the bench 
of the mountain^ they would take off the wheels, and 
let the axles rest on the ground. Hien tents and 
afterwards houses were erected. 

One incident that happened that summer impressed 
me with solemn thoughts. For lack of a house 
a great many people g^athercd under the trees 
one Sunday to hear the preacher. A rain came up 
and we all retired to the rock house. As I listened to 
a good sermon and saw the preacher laying his book 
on the rock where I had so often set my coffee pot, 



INTRODUCTORY. vii 

my mind ran back to the many tnnes I had camped 
here, to times when the scream of the panther or the 
growl of the bear mingled with that of my dogs in 
fight. Little did I think then that afteiward I would 
sit there and hear the voice of the man of God echoing 
among those rocks. I was convinced that the all- 
wise Creator had not made those mountains and val- 
leys merely for the wild beasts. 

People kept pouring in, and in the fall and v^n'nter 
of 1879 m.y house was alw^ays full of sick and helpless 
people who had no shelter. We could never turn 
them away, and many times my wife and I had to 
give up our own bed. 

One miraculous cure I remember was that of a 
young man who was brought helpless to my house by 
his father. He had rheumatism and had to be carried 
in from the wagon. He drank freely from the keg of 
Basin water we had at the house, and then his father 
took him on to town the next day and bathed him in 
the water tw^oor three times a day. In one week 
they eame driving back and the boy was sitting up in 
the seat and could get around very well. The old 
gentleman started on to his Missouri home with his 
son and a barrel of Basin w^ater. 

There was one lady who had a cancer on her face 
and had spent many dollars for relief. Finally she 
came to Eureka Springs^ camping in a small tent just 



viii INTRODUCTORY. 

above the l^asin. One morning I went there where 
several people had gathered and found the lady shout- 
ing-: "I am well, 1 am well ; I came to die but I will 
get well; thank God." Within three weeks her can- 
cer had come out by the roots and she had it in her 
bottle half filled with alcohol, and she took it with her 
when she returned to her home in Indiana. She did 
not boil the water, she said, but used it from the 
spring just as God gave it. 

The town built up rapidly without much foim or 
improvement on streets until after Governor Clayton 
located here, and through his influence and energy the 
town soon had a railroad and passable streets, and 
then the springs were improved and the streets fixed, 
adding much to the looks and comforts of the place. 
Now it is one of 'the most picturesque towns to be 
found in the state, clnd is visitgd both for health and 
pleasure. The town has manv magnificent buildings 
and substantial enterprises, including the Sanitaruim 
compan\', which has grounds near Eureka Springs and 
is doing much in the wnv of improvements. The 
beautiful scenery in ever}- in everv direction fills the 
visitor with astonishment not to be described with the 
pen. 

In conclusion I will say that the happiest days of 
my life were spent here in the mountains of north 
Arkansas, where the mild climate is conducive to the 



I N T RO D U : r O R Y . i X 

nealth of man and beast; where game was so abun- 
dant that I couid always have plenty of nice meat in 
my house without depending- on hogs or cattle, vyhich 
I have to do now, and with close economy, too. 
Then I could roam freely with my dogs and gun over 
the mountains, enjoying it to the fullest extent until 
the w^ar broke out, when mv troubles besran. 

I was called to help raise the confederate flag and 
refused to do it, telling them I thought it was not 
right to raise any fiag except the stars and stripes for 
which our grandfathers had fought, and which had 
given us our liberty and our homes. 

Not long after that the conscript law came in force 
and I was given notice to join the Southern ranks. I 
could not do it and had to leave the country, going 
with several others to Ozark, Missouri, where th 
United States flag was floating. With three of my 
sons I was enlisted into the service. I had left my 
wife and small children beliind. All of my stock 
was driven off by men who did not belong to either 
army and did not care where they got their spoils- 
sixty head of cattle, twenty head of horses, and prob- 
ably a hundred head of hogs. 

My house was pillaged of everything exce]:)t what 
my wife and children wore. Hearing of the dcstitu- 
fion of my family I came back and took them to Greene 
county, Missouri, stopping ncnr Springfield, v. here 



X INTRODUCTORY. 

I remained nntil after the war was over. Then I went 
back to my desolated home, and found that my house 
had been burned and my farm laid waste. But I was 
no worse off than my neighbors, and went to work 
again, and raised a good crop that year, which en- 
abled us to live. In the fall I went to hunting and 
soon had plenty of meat. In a few years I was getting 
along very well agai) , w^hen the surveyors came 
through my farm and wanted a right of way for a 
railroad. I was reminded of a conversation I had had 
with Squire Beaver years before. 

"Gaskin,," says he, "some day this valley will be 
a public highway, where the stage coach will run, and 
in time there will be a railroad, for this is the only 
opening through. You and I may not live to see it, 
but it will come some day in the future." And now 
his words were being verified. 

I let them have their right of way, by them making 
me a good many promises which they fulfilled, mak- 
ing a switch just below my house which they named 
Gaskins. And I have never failed to get my pass 
over the road, and will as long as I live. My farm 
was almost ruined with the railroad running through 
the best part of it, so I sold out there, buying a place 
three miles east of Eureka Springs, where I am still 
living and enjoying very good health, never having an 
ache or pain from my exposure when I was running 



INTRODUCTORY. xi 

over these mountains hunting for so many years, and 
in all kinds of weather, which goes to prove that this 
is the healthiest place in the world, if a man will only 
stick to it. 

I will say that I am a member of the G. A. R. and 
belong to Lyon Post, No. 6, Eureka Springs, Arkan- 
sas. I have always voted for a republican president, 
casting my first vote for William Henry Harrison in 
1840. I have raised all my boys to vote as I did and 
do and my girls have married good Union men. 

If all the members of the G. A. R. had done that 
we might be ahead today. When Benjamin Harrison 
was last a candidate for president, I was enabled with 
my sons and sons-in-law and grand sons to cast twenty 
votes for him. I say to all, stand firm, for I believf 
that the true source will prevail. 

I was proud of my mother state during the rebellion 
for many of my brothers and relatives went out fight- 
ing hard to save the union, many of them giving up 
their lives. 

I believe that Benjamin Harrison and James G, 
Blaine were two of the solidest men we had in the 
government, and why should my native state go back on 
them? There are some little fellows who believe 
they have downed the strongest party in the govern- 
ment, and maybe they have, but when you strike a 
man's pocketbook you get next to his heart. But 



xii INTRODUCTORY. 

they are coming and will need protection, too if I am 
not mistaken. 

I know my davs are almost numbered, and I do not 
expect to ever vote for another president, but if I do I 
will vote as I have always done. 

I want to add that I believe we arc raising" boys 
here at Eureka Springs on this pure water who will 
have the brains for presidents. I often tell people 
that I have made it possible tor them to raise children 
here b}^ killinj^ the bears and other wild animals. Now 
in my old davs I have the pleasure of seeing so manv 
nice healthy children that 1 feel repaid for all I ha\e 
g'one through, and sincerelv hope that my efforts to 
make this book interestingf will not be in vain. 



SOxMETHING ABOUT BEARS. 

I have spent thirty years of my life in hunting and 
killing bears, and will give my experience of their na- 
ture and habits. 

The bear is the most formidable animal I have had 
to contend with, it has more sense than any other wild 
animal 1 have seen. 1 have killed over two hundred 
of them, and wa> never hurt ]:)v one, though I have 
had many narrow escapes. In most cases they will 
try to get away from you, and, if not crowded, will 
go for miles without stopping. When pressed they 
will fiorht to the bitter end. A bear never hollows till 



xiii INTRODUCTORY. 

he's clone for or gets a death wound, and then he al- 
ways cries ''Oh, Lord.** At least, it sounds like 
that; and I could always tell when he wns done by 
that cry. 

The bears go into winter quarters about the last of 
December and remain there until spring. After thev 
locate their den or cave, the first thing they do is to 
knaw the trees about the mouth of it, and also where 
the?y go to water. Then they wallow till they clean 
themselves completely. 

Then they make themselyesa cork — apparently out 
of grass, bark and rosin chewed together very hard — 
and cork themselves up, and then go into the den for 
the winter. 

I have killed numbers of them in winter quarters and 
examined them all over and found nothins: in their en- 
trails but a little water and a few gra vels, which 
proved to me that they never eat anything till they 
come out in the spring. I believe that thev suck their 
paws. It is certain their feet are very soft and tender 
when they come out. They can hardly walk. Thev 
are as fat in the spring as they are in the fall. Thev 
are always in a kind of a sleep or stupor. 

The cubs come in the month of Januarv. They are 
small and perfectly naked and helpless. The mother 
when nursing them, takes them up one at a time, and 
holds them to her breast. She stays right in the den 



xiv INTRODUCTORY. 

with the cubs till spring when they are large enough 
to follow her. 

Bears protect themselves from flies and vermin by 
rubbing themselves in rosin, having gnawed the trees 
early in spring so the rosin will run. 

The first of August is running time with them. 
They collect together and the males fight terribly, and 
can be heard for miles. They are very dangerous 
then. When the fights are over they go to the rosin 
trees and rub their wounds until they are completely 
covered, keeping away the flies. They thus rub them- 
selves, too, when they are atter honey, so the bees 
will not hurt them. 

I thought my success as a bear hunter was because 
I made it a study as well as a practice. I knew how 
to take all advantage of them, and always kept well 
trained dogs. I always helped my dogs out, and 
never neglected them when they treed anything, but 
got to them as quick as I could. 

I make it a point never to lose my presence of mind. 
Some men get so excited that they allowed the bear 
to escape. I know that all wild animals naturally 
fear man and will in most cases try to get away from 
him. 

A panther or wolf will make fight sooner than a 
bear, but they are more inclined to be cowardly, or at 
least I have found them so. But my^hunting days are 



INTRODUCTORY. xv 

over. I can only tell what I have done, which I trust 
will be interesting, I have tried to tell nothing but 
facts, and if I have varied from the truth it is by mis- 
take and not intentionally. 

WHAT DR. MARTIN SAYS. 

I have been personally acquainted with Uncle 
Johnny Gaskins for 22 years. I shall always f»el 
grateful for the manner in which he helped me out of 
a difficulty with a bear. 

In February, 1873, I was traveling from Jasper 
county. Missouri to Berryville, Arkansas, and camped 
near Mr. Gaskins' house one night, when a larg^e bear 
came to the camp and frightened my wife and children 
nearly to death. My wrist was broken and I could 
not shoot, and besides I was afraid that if I wounded 
the bear he would attack us. We took our children and 
huiTied to Mr. Gaskins' house. Mr. Gaskins invited 
us in and made my family family comfortable, and 
listened to my story. He went with me back to the 
wagon and took four of his bear dogs and chased the 
bear over near the sycamore spring. 

When I offered to pay him next morning he refused 
to take anything, but invited me to stay with him for 
a week, and hunt with him, for he was a great bear 
hunter. 

He had plenty around him, and was a man gener- 
ous to a fault. I often see him now, which does me 
good, for it reminds me of the old saying that "a 
fiiend in need is a friend indeed." 

Dr. J. M. Martin. 



ADVENTURES OF JOHN GASKINS, 



CHAPTER I. 



INTRODUCTION. 

OHN GASKINS, one of the oldest pio- 
neers of Carroll county. Arkansas, was 
born about 1816 in Washing-ton county, 
Indiana. I am a son of John and Mary 
Ann (Kite) Gaskins. My father was 
born near Cincinnati, in Ohio, and 
removed to the State of Indiana in 
early times. He died at my birth place, after which 
his widovV with her family removed to Monroe county, 
Indiana, and from thence to Sullivan county, where 
she died. After the death of my father the sup- 
port of the family devolved upon my oldest brother 
and myself. I remained with mother till I was nine- 




i8 lifp: and adventures 

teen years old, when I married Miss Susan Scott and 
settled on a farm in Monroe county. 

Four years afterward I removed to Northwest 
Arkansas, settling on the White river, in Marion 
county. There were no mills, no post offices, and 
none of the conveniences of civilization here at that 
rime. The civil law was not even enforced. 

My first acquaintance in the settlement was an old 
hunter whose name was Cowan. He lived in an old 
log cabin with nothing but the earth for a floor. I 
think he had either ten or twelve children, all of them 
hearty. It was from him I learned something about 
wild honey, which was very plentiful. 

The old man had a deer skin, fleshed, with the hair 
taken off. He would mount his horse ''Pomp" and 
ride out and find a bee tree. After filling the deer 
skin with honey he would tie the legs together, form- 
ing a sort of leather bag. This he would bring home 
and hang up on a wooden peg in the corner of his 
cabin. Then he would ."^ay : 

''Gome children, ^et your gourds." And they 
came, I tell you ! They would untie one of the fore 
legs and bring it a little twist and out would spout the 
honey. One would fill his gourd and then another, so 
it was very convenient. 

All the way people had to get their meal was to 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 19 

g'l'ate it or pound it in a mortar. This was very la- 
borious, as you may believe. 

I talked a great deal with Mr. Cowan and got 
considerable information from him about the country. 
I was a new-comer and anxious to learn all I could. 
We talked a great deal about bear hunting. Cowan 
weighed about two hundred pounds. He was not 
afraid to go right into a hole where a bear was. 
In a conversation one day he told me this story about 
one of his hunts, and I have every reason to believe 
it true. The story is as follows: 



COWAN'S BEAR STORY. 

*'I was hunting one day with a half breed Ind-ian." 
said Mr-. Cowan. "Our dogs jumped a barren she 
bear and ran her into a hole. 

" 'What will we do. nowr' says the Indian. 

" 'You go make- a torch, and we'll go in and kill 
her.' The half breed soon had the torch ready and 
we went in together, he carrying the light. The holt 
was so small that we had to crawl. I had got in about 
twice my length when I heard the bear snuffing and 
growling. I knew she was mad and was coming. 

"You can'.t stop a bear when it gets started. This 
one came on us like a railroad train. The lisfht went 



20 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

out and so did the Indian. He was small and managed 
to retreat; but I was so large I couldn't make it. So 
I ducked my head down and let her go over me. 

'^I nearly filled the hole and as the bear went out 
she tore and lacerated my back in the most dreadful 
manner, so that I became unconscious. 

'•After the bear got out and and ran off, my half 
breed Indian friend crawled in, got me by the feet and 
dragged me out. I was more dead than alive; but 
after getting me out the Indian rubbed me and worked 
with me till I could sit up. 

''In the meantime the dogs had chased the bear up 
a tree only a short distance away. I told the Indian 
to take my gun and go shoot her, and to keep on 
shootino- till he killed her. After he had killed the 
bear we managed, between us, to get her home. 

••Now, Gaskins. that broke me from going in holes 
after bears; I never went in after another one. I will 
carrv to my grave the scars I got on that day. I have 
killed bears since then in a good many ways, but I 
don't go in any more holes." 

FEROCIOUS WILD BeAsTS. 
I was verv well satisfied with my new home, al- 
though the country was rough and the people even 
roup-her. That fall I bought a hundred acres of land 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 21 

and built me a house on it. The land nearly all lay 
in the river bottom. It was very fertile and at first I 
thought there was nothing in the world to hinder me 
from getting rich in a few years. I went to work with 
a will, desiring land, fencing and making me a farm. 

The country was full of game and wild animals, 
and I was always fond of hunting. So I was delight- 
ed with the prospect before me. 

Along late that fall I started one morning to go to 
a mill about eight miles from where I lived. Within 
two miles of the mill I found a wolf trap with a large 
gray wolf in it. I did not tackle it. but went on to the 
mill and told what I had seen. All hands quit work. 
Gathering up all the dogs that could be found, we all 
went back to the trap. 

We wanted to have some sport with the wolf, and 
by puiling his legs out with a forked stick we ham- 
stringed him before we let him go. As soon as he 
got out the fun commenced. He fouo^ht the doo-s for 
an hour, and finally whipped them all. There could 
scarcely be conceived a more ferocious beast. He 
would have got away at last, but we, having a gun 
with us, ran up and shot him. 

A few days after that one of my neighbors, John 
Hatton, was out bee hunting when two large wolves 
attacked him. ' He had nothing but an axe with which 



22 



LIFE AND ADV^ENTURES 




KILLING A PANTHER WITH HIS FISTS. 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 23 

to defend himself, but this he used to such good pur- 
pose that he cut one of the wolves about half in two, 
and at last succeeded in driving the other away. 

That same fall one of my neighbors had a terrible 
encounter with a panther. This neighbor was a large 
stout man, but only had about enough sense to drive 
up the cows. The family he lived with started him 
out one morning after the cows ; as he was going 
along a small path a hungry panther jumped on 
him. He had nothing to defend himself with, npt 
even so much as a pocket knife. 

He fought the panther with his fist until he killed it! 
When he got home he was a pitiful object. His clothes 
were completely torn off him ; and his breast and 
shoulders were torn and lacerated until the blood ran 
down in streams to his feet. They asked him how he 
managed to kill the panther. 

"Every time it sprang at me," said he, "I would 
cry out, 'now here we take it!' and give it a lick with 
my fist, until I killed it dead." 



24 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 



CHAPTER II. 



MY FIRST PANTHER, 

1 wa!5 very busy all that fall and winter and hunted 
but little, and that little was near home. I own that 
I was a little afraid, after hearing so many bloody 
tales, and knowing, too, that the country was full of 
wild animals. 

But the next summer, after my crop was laid by, 
my wife and I went to visit her father, who lived 
twenty miles away. We had but one milk cow, and 
having no one to leave at home turned the calf out 
with the cow. Returning home a week later, I went 
out to hunt my cow. I started early in the morning, 
and took my gun and dog with mo; but I had forgot- 
ten to feed the dog that morning and he left me after 
I got out about a mile and went back home. 

I was in a small valley when I began to get fright- 
ened, but I kept on for I saw more open coimtry 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 25 

ahead. '*If I can get over there where I can see," 
I thought, '*I won't be so scared." 

In the valley the w^eeds and grass were nearlv as 
high as my head, and I could imagine that all sorts of 
dangerous animals were crouching there, ready to 
spring on to me. It's hard for anybody but a hunter 
to reilize how lonesome and dangerous it seems in 
such a place without a dog. 

Bye and bye I found bear sign. The bear had 
been wallowing and had gone in the same direction I 
traveled. This didn't suit me. I didn't want see a 
bear that morning, nor a panther neither. 

I stopped a moment to consider the best thing to do, 
and then I thought about snakes. At that thouo-ht I 
started on as fast as I could walk; and, like a scared 
man, the further and the faster I got the more badly 
scared I became. I got to a small branch and hurried 
to cross it. ^V 

All at once there came such a terrible growl right 
before that I stopped. I could see the bulk of some- 
thing and the grass moving not six feet from me. I 
jerked the gun from my shoulder and cocked it* I 
held the gun before me and began to step backward 
The animal crept on, but I gained on it. When I o-r 
where I could see, the animal was not yet ten ste' 
distant. 



26 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

It was a large iDanther, and he was coming at me ! 

I felt my hair raising up on my head. I brought 
the gun to my shoulder and said, or thought: 

"Now, dog-nab you, I'll kill you !" 

I tried to draw a bead on the panther, but he kept 
moving, as it seemed to me, up and down and from 
side to side, so that there was no reasonable chance of 
hitting it if I shot. I took the gun down and the pan- 
ther suddenly quit bobbing around ; it still crept cau- 
tiously at me, however. 

Sol raised the gun the second time to shoot it. The 
same thing occurred again. That panther wouldn't 
keep still ! Of course I realized later it was my nerves 
that caused the panther's seeming motion ; but just then 
he appeared to dodge about in the strangest manner, 
and every time I tried to draw a bead he would be in a 
different place from where I pointed. 

T^erhajDs the panther was as badly scared as me ; or 

maybe h^ just changfed his mind. At any rate, my time 

hadn't come yet to have a hand-to-hand conflict, for 

he panther stopped suddenly and turned about and 

^treated. I felt good then, I tell you. 

My hat seemed to be gone. I put my hand up to 
V head, and lo and behold! the hat was there. 

"Dog-nab old Dinah! You may go. I'm going 

le," says I to the panther. To back once more 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 27 

•^a'fe witli my wife and babies at home was the dearest 
■ambition earth held for me just then - 

\\%en the story v^^s told at home about my scrape 
with the panther my brother-in-law^ Thomas, just 
laughed at me, 

"Why didn't you kill it, John?" says he; ''who'd 
ha.\' a thought you'd be s^icli a coward !" 

"You don't know one dog-nabbed thing about it, 
Thomas," was my reply; "and you'll not get me back 
ithere after that cow, either, unless somebody goes 
"with me," So tbe next moi-ning he did go with me, 
both of us on horseback, over the same gi-ound. We 
found the cow, but saw nothing of the panther. 



THOMAS AND THE BEAR, 

Not nntil the next winter did Thomas have a chance 
to show his bravery. One morning, soon after we had 
moved to our own piaoe near the river, he said he'd 
^o 0ut and kill a deer, 

**Go ahead, Thomas, '^ said I. 

He took his gun and horse and s^arted. He had 
not been gone very long before my wife heard him 
•shoot; and directly he came back after the dog, saying 
uie had shot a bear. 



28 LIFE AND ADVENl^TiKES" 

He took the dog and put him on the track ; he soon 
ran the bear into a cane-brake. Thomas stayed around 
a short time and then came home, leaving the dog still 
baying- the bear. 

''What is the dog barking at across the river?" was 
my first question upon coming home after dark that 
night. I spoke to my wife ; Thomas was in bed but 
heard me, and he said : 

•'John, it's a bear. I crippled it and the dog run 
it into the cane-brake over there." 

"Well, if you had it wounded you could have killed 
it, Thomas." 

"Johnny," said he, "there were two other bears in 
there ; and what was to hinder them from getting me, 
even if the dog did keep that one off?" 

"And you accused me of being a coward, Thomas ! 
Dog-nab it, you are a bigger coward than me, for 1 
would have stayed with my dog." 

But these were scary times for a new comer in the 
country, and we were just learning; but we soon got 
broke in, I tell you, as you will find out by reading 
this history. , 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 29 



CHAPTER III. 



THE CLOUD BURST. 

There had been much hard work done on my new 
home, and under many disadvantages, too. We had 
succeeded in getting a small orchard started, and 
about fifteen acres in good cultivation ; and were get- 
ting along very well until the summer of 1845, when a 
great misfortune overtook us. 

I had plowed my corn three times and was just 
laying it by; and a promising crop it was, too. 

One evening it began lightning and thundering; 
looked as if there might be a storm. Mr. Stanfield 
came to my house to spend the night. His business 
was to sell me a new hat made of buckeye splints. The 
hat was a very clumsy thing. He talked and bragged 
so much I told him I might take one if he could make 
the splints smaller and the hat lighter; it would beat a 
coon-skin cap for summer, at any rate. 

He was a great talker, as well as myself, and we 



30 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

sat up quite late. It was still thundering, but no rain 
at bed time, when all fell asleep. 

Some time in the night I awoke, and heard the 
cats squalling. 

"Those cats must be on the bed with the children," 
I said, calling to my w^iie. 

She stepped on the floor, and found it covered with 
water. I jumped and ran to the fire place, but found 
the fire out, and felt the floor raising up. 

"Stanfield! Stanfield!" I called. 

He jumped up and picked up one of the children : 
I gathered up the other two and took my wife by the 
arm and w^e started out of the cabin. 

Being black night, and the waters rushing around 
us, we had a time of the greatest danger and difiiculty. 
and had to wade through water waist deep for fifty 
yards or more. 

Here we found higher ground and waited for the 
morning's light. 

We did not sleep any more, and when the da} 
broke our eyes beheld a saddening scene of ruin and 
desolation. 

The house was still standing, 'and there was a little 
furniture in it, and that was all that was left. 

INIy fencing was gone, my hogs, chickens and milk 
house carried off by the flood : my crop utterly ruined 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 31 

We had nothing, in fact, for breakfast except a little 
corn meal ; this had been luckily sifted in a tray and 
kept dry by floating around on the water in the house. 

I felt pretty blue, you may be sure, on seeing the 
state of affairs. 

But there is a funny side to the most extreme disas- 
ters, and I must tell you about Mr. Stanfield's misfor- 
tune. The excitement of leaving the house in the 
night had caused him to forget his hat, and in the morn- 
ing it was gone. We supposed it had been carried off 
by the flood, but after searching around he finxilly 
found it under the corner of the house. It was full of 
mud and had a dead hen in it besides. We got the hen 
out after much pulling, and the hat then looked like 
anything else but a hat, being all out of shape, and 
weighing perhaps five pounds. 

"What '11 I do for a hat, Gaskins?" saysStanfield, 
looking the perfect picture of despair. 

"Wash it." 

"No, no," says he; "for then it won't go on my 
head." 

He seemed so troubled that I couldn't help but feel 
sorry for him, amusing as it was. Stanfield felt anx- 
ious, too, about his own family, for he lived further up 
the river; so he. threw the hat aside and left bareheaded 
for his home. 



32 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

Aftei*ward we learned that he was not injured by 
the flood, which, indeed, proved to be only a cloud 
burst, and I fared worse than any one else. 

I was very much discouraged. But being young 
and stout I soon took courage in the saying, "Where 
there's a will there's a way," and set to work to fix up 
,my place again. 

But I could not be satisfied any more at that place 
of misfortune, and sold out that fall to remove to 
Carroll county. 

I bought a farm of one hundred and ninety acres of 
land located where the town of Green Forest now 
stands, and moved on this place in the spring. My 
new farm had about forty acres in cultivation. 

I was well pleased with the prospects around me. 
There was a good log school house near me, and also 
a small church house, and plenty of good Christian 
neighbors. I enjoyed all of these very much, feeling 
glad to be where there was civilization once more. 

Although it was rather late, I managed to get my 
corn in early enough to make a good crop, and aftei 
laying my crop by devoted the most of the time that 
fall and winter to killing deer and traveling around. 

There were a good many old buffalo licks to be 
found in this county at that time, but the buffa4oes 
had all sfone. 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 



CHAPTER IV. 



BIG GAME IN THE OSAGE MOUNTAINS. 

Alono; that winter John Scott, Willis Dunhip, David 
Hayhurst, James Matthews and myself took a trip up 
in the Osage mountains to kill some wild hogs that 
belonged to Dunlap. We took my well-trained dog 
along, besides three other dogs that l:»elonged to mem- 
bers of the party. 

We found found that the hogs had moved their 
range; but we went on for a mile or two. and struck a 
large track, and began to guess what it could be. 

" 'Tis a bear track, "said Scott. 

We followed it on and Scott kept saying to me: 

'•It's a bear, John; you stay back and make your 
dog stay back, too." 

"You let mv doggo on," says I ; --he knows what 
what he's doing." 

We passed on around under a large cliff and tound 



34 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

^hat the supposed bear had jumped on a higher ledge 
of rock. We could not climb up there. 

"Scott, you hold my gun," says I: "I'll climb 
a tree and get on the ledge and see if he is there." 

"No, no!" says Scott. "You had better not go 
up there, John. I see a hole in the rock. He may 
be in that hole and if he is he'll knock blazes of light- 
ning out of you." 

"I'll take my gun, then, Scott. I'm going up there 
and if it wants to knock any lightning out of me, I'll 
help it." 

I climbed a sapling and looked into the hole, but 
there was nothing there. I could see, though, where 
the beast had jumped still higher up, and by looking 
further found where it had gone down again. 

"You needn't come up here, boys," I called down 
to them from my blace on the higher ledge. "It 
seems to have gone down again. But my dog's uphere 
and we'll go on till we find a place to come down." 

I walked and ran for about a half mile before I 
found a place to go down. Before starting down I 
happened to look below. There was a large panther 
coming right up towards me. 

"Go!" says I, to the dog. 

He jumped for the panther and it turned and ran, 
going across the mountain and into the next cove. I 
followed as fast as possible, stumbling over the rocks, 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 35 

but trying to keep in sight. When I got up to them 
again the dog had caught the panther and the two were 
fio-htine. Thev rolled down the mountain as thev 
fought, and it seemed to me that the panther was kill- 
ing the dog. 

"Take him! Dog-nab him! Take him!" I 
halloed to the dog, running up to frighten the panther. 
He did seem to be scared and ran further around the 
mountain. Here he took refuge in the mouth of .u 
cave, that seemed to be his den. 

The dog was barking and the panther made the 
rocks tremble with his loud and vicious growling. M y 
hair almost raised on my head, for I couldn't see him 
at first. When I got around facing him. the dog, en- 
couraged by my presence, rushed forward, and the 
panther struck him and knocked him about ten steps. 
I thought the dog would be killed, but he didn't 
seem to be hurt, and it may as well be explained that 
this panther, perhaps in dragging himself over the 
rocks, had pulled his front claws out, and his toes were 
all bleeding. So he could only strike the dog with 
his velvety foot. 

The dog was back at the panther in an instant, but 
not before I raised my gun and shot him in the head. 
The ball struck too low and too much on one side, 
tearing away .one side of his nose and lip, knocking 
out a whole row of teeth. Without waiting to see the 



36 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

effect of the shot, I stepped back behind a rock to re- 
load my gim. Dog and panther were fighting again ^ 
and the panther's cries and growls were terrible to hear. 
As the blood filled his mouth he would sniffle and 
cough. 

I succeeded in getting another shot, but the dog 
interfered and again the bullet failed to strike a vital 
place, and I retreated to load. The panther had 
changed his position now, and was fighting the dog 
just behind the rock by the path. Every moment I 
expected the dog to be killed, and although in passing 
around to where the panther could be seen I had to go 
so close as to almost touch him, I nerved myself to 
the ordeal and went by him. Fortunately, the dog 
held his attention, and so he didn't see me. 

My gun was a flint lock, and in the haste to reload 
I had got snow in the pan and the ^un failed to fire, 
but every time it snapped the dog jumped at the pan- 
ther, only to get knocked down again. I re-primed 
the gun and at last it fired, knocking the panther back 
between the rocks. He could not get up, but lay 
there and lashed his tail and howled and bit the rocks 
in a perfect agony of pain and anger. I called the dog 
back and sat down to wait, feeling sure the panther 
was dying. 

After a little I heard the other hunters up above, 
and Scott halloed down to me. 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 37 

"John," says he, "what have you got?" 

"I've got a regular old he bear dow^nhere, Scott." 

He listened and could hear the moans and growls 
of the panther in its death agonies. The sound 
poured up between the rocks. 

"John," says he, in great excitement, "I'll be 
dod-dineed if I don't hear it! I hear it. How can a 
fellow get down ?" 

Then without waiting for a reply he began to 
climb down the opening. 

"Hold on, Scott," says I. "You cant come down 
there. You are coming right down on it. Go back 
and look for my tracks and follow them down. That's 
the only way you can get here." 

They were not long in getting down and around to 
where we were. Scott came running up, puffing as 

he ran. 

"John," says he, "Be dod-dinged if it aint a pan- 
ther, and you've got him. But he aint dead yet. 
Must I shoot him?" 

"No! I've shot him three times already, and 
that's enough. You can take a rock and knock him 
on the head if you want to." He tried that, but its 
head was so hard he couldn't crack its skull. Then 
he pulled out his butcher knife and stuck it, and jump- 
ed back crying: 



38 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

''John, that will do him. Dod-ding him he flops 
his tail just like a 'possum." 

We pulled the panther out and measured him with 
a pole, and he measured ten feet from the tip of his 
nose to the end of his tail. He was so old that he was 
getting gray. He had been a terror in that neighbor- 
hood for years, carrying off pigs and calves. He was 
so very fat that we got twenty pounds of tallow from 
him. 



TWO MYSTERIOUS WOLVES. 

The neighborhood had been troubled a great deal 
with wolves, and the neighbors told me there was a 
large gray wolf in the country which had been often 
seen, but was so cunning that nobody could ever get a 
shot at him. 

"Well,*' says I. "I'm here now, and that wolf 
has got to die. He and I can't hunt in the same woods 
together. I'll get him, suie." 

About the middle of February I started out one 
day to hunt for deer. There was A light snow on the 
ground and it was melting a little on the south side of 
the mountains. After going along about a mile in a 
small path, I looked ahead of me and saw the old gray 
wolf coming toward me in a long lope. He had not 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 39 

seen me, and I hid behind a large tree, knowing from 
the direction he came that he would have to cross my 
, tracks in the path. 

"I've got you now, ^' I thought, and waited with 
cocked gun for him to come on : '"When you get near 
enough I'll bleat like a sheep and you'll stop long 
enough for me to get a dead shot." 

But he was too cuuning for that. Just as he reach- 
ed the path he scented my tracks and jumped as high 
as my head, and away he went. The more I bleated, 
the faster he ran, and there was no chance for a shot. 

About two weeks after that I was hunting 
deer among the Osag"e mountains and moved very 
quietly along one of the slopes. 

I slipped up to a place where several little points 
ran down on the south side of the mountain, expecting 
surely to see a deer there. I peeped around from be- 
hind a tree. « There was no deer there, but instead, 
only a short distance away, there lay the old gray wolf, 
sunnnig himself. His head looked as big as a horse's 
head. 

"Well, I'll get you sure this time," was my thought. 

I raised my gun and drew a bead.- The very hairs 
on his head were to be seen. But just as I was pulling 
the trigger he took the alarm somehow and leaped to 
his feet. I fired and he rolled over and over down the 
hill out of sight. I stopped to reload, watching all 



40 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

the while, and the next thing I saw was a small black 
wolf running away from the place when this gray 
wolf had disappeared. The black wolf was too far 
off for me to shoot, but I followed him around above 
hoping to get a shot. I struck his track and found 
plenty of blood. 

"What does this mean?" was my thought. "Here 
I shoot at a gray wolf and wound a black one which I 
never saw before ! " 

The black wolf in the distance could be seen roll- 
ing down the hill and whining aw^fully. I stopped, 
hoping he would come back. But he kept on making 
such a fuss that I went over there. He was gone, 
but the snow where he had been rolling was all cover- 
ed with blood. I followed him over a mile, but could 
never get a shot, and at last he got away from me al- 
together, and I went home, where the matter was re- 
lated to my wife. ^ 

"I shoot a gray wolf. He rolls down the hill and 
changes into a black wolf, and the black one runs 
away, bleeding from fresh wounds." 

"Well, you are mistaken," say§ she. "It was the 
black wolf you shot." 

"Dog-nab if it was ! I shot a gray wolf and saw 
no black one until after the shot." 

The matter bothered me considerably. I didn't 
sleep much that night for thinking about it, and next 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 41 

morning went over to my nearest neighbor, Mr. Dun- 
lap, and told him about it. 

"Gaskins," says he, "you are surely mistaken; 
it was the black wolf you shot at." 

"Dog-nab if it w^as. And I'll never be satisfied 
without going back there to find out what it means." 

"I'll go with you," says he. 

So went back together, and put the dogs on the • 
track. They followed down the hill the way the gray 
wolf had rolled, and, sure enough, there we found 
him dead. 

By looking around we found that both wolves had 
been laying there, the black one below. The bullet 
had gone clean through the gray wolf and struck the 
black one. 

Well, I was satisfied, I had got the old gray wolf 
that all had told me nobody could get a shot at. I be- 
gan to think I was a pretty good hunter, even if the 
first panther I saw had scared me so badly. 

I had now killed one large panther and the terrible 
and cunning old gray wolf. 



42 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 



CHAPTER V. 



THE FOUR-TINED BUCK. 

My next encounter came hear getting away with me. 
This is the way it happened: I had contracted to 
build a house some three miles from where I lived, 
and had a man of the name of Shipman helping me. 
We started one morning to work and one of our neigh- 
bor's dogs followed us. We had gone about a mile 
when there came running along a four-point buck, and 
as he passed us I shot, breaking his fore leg. The dog 
jjave chase and the buck ran on in the direction we 
traveled. 

We went to out work and in about three hours the 
dog came back to us, covered with blood and badly 
used up. 

"The dog has caught that deer. He has been h\ 
a fight with it," says I; "if we can only get him to 
take us back to it we can kill it." 

"If the dog hasn't killed it already," said Shipman. 

"Well, we'll see," said I. 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 43 

We started the dog and followed him . After going- 
down a long slope and across a very rocky branch, he 
ran up on a little point and brought the deer to bay in 
a thicket. The dog was afraid to go in at first, but I 
urged him and he finally plunged into the thicket out 
of sigfht. 

In a minute he was back again, the buck coming 
after him with great, vicious lung-es. 

When the buck saw us he turned and ran about a 
hundred yards down the branch and jumped into a hole 
of water, the dog hot after him. 

We both ran down there, finding that the dog had 
caught the buck by the ear. 

I stuck my gun down and fired, aiming to break the 
buck's back: but the ball went too low and simply 
made him madder than ever. I saw at once that he 
was going to kill the dog, and that before I could re- 
load the gun. 

''Dog-nab if I can stand it, Shipman," says I; "I 
am going to help that dog." 

And without stopping to think twice — for no true 
hunter can stand coldly by and see a good dog in dan- 
ger — I jumped into the water and zeized the buck by 
the horns. I had no sooner done so than he turned 
away from the dog and began to strike at me with his 
feet. The ungrateful dog — though maybe I oughtn't 
to blame him, for he was tired out — at once swam 



44' LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

ashore and lay down. And there I was, in that hole 
with a mad deer and it doing its best to kill me. 

"Shipman!" I begged; "come and help me." 

"Oh, no, no; I'm afraid," says he. 

"Get it by the hind legs and pull it back, so I can 
get my knife out and stab it." 

"I can't," says he. 

All this time the buck was fighting like nothing 
else but a w^ounded buck can fight. He would rush 
me in toward the shore until it was almost impossible 
to escape his horns. Then he would swing me around 
into the deep water, cutting at me with his feet. I 
was becoming rapidly exhausted. I didn't dare to let 
loose, and I couldn't hold on much longer. 

"Shipman, I've got to have help," says I; "go and 
get a club and do something." 

He went and I thought he never would come back. 
But I held on, for it was death to let go, and he came 
at last, armed with a heavy stick. He struck the deer 
across the back, and to my great relief it instantly sank 
down. I held on to the horns with one hand anrl 
reached for my knife and stuck him with the other, 
wanted to be sure he was dead betore P let loose. 

And that was the last four-tined buck I ever tried 
to hold by the horns. 

But that same fall I had another very narrow cs. 
cape from a large buck. 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 45 

A BUCK THAT WAS NOT DEAD. 



I had killed a fine deer one morning- and, after 
hanging it up in a tree, started for my horse so I could 
carry it home. My way lay up a small creek, and I 
stopped to wash my 'hands at a convenient hole of 
water, laying my gun down near by. While washing, 
[ heard a stick break just below me and behind a drift. 
At the same time my dog began to growl. 

Without raising. I looked up and could see above 
the drift the horns and nose of a big buck. 

I reached for my gun and shot him. From the wav 
he fell back I thought his neck was broken. 

My dog ran around to him and I heard him bleat, 
but thought nothmg of that, and got up and started, 
leaving my gun on the ground, and when I got around 
in sight the dog had him by the throat. With mv 
knife in my hand I walked up to stick him. 

I was within five feet of him when he batted his 
eye a time or two and at the same moment sprang to 
his feet. He tore loose from the dog and lunged at 
me. I had no time to run or even dodge, and just 
bent myself over to one side as far as possible. 

His horns grazed my side as he went bv, and the 
dog grabbing at his throat helped to turn him aside, 
and that was all that saved me. 



46 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

The buck ran about fifty yards down stream anti 
jumped into a hole of water which was deep enough to- 
come up on his sides. The dog, having to swim, 
could not do much with him ; for every time swam up 
close enough the buck would souse him under the wa- 
ter and would have soon drowned him. I reloaded 
my gun as quick as I could and ran up in about thirty 
steps of him and shot him through the heart. 

He made one last desperate lunge at the dog and 
caught him between his horns and pinned him to the 
bank. I thought my dog mas killed, but after pulling 
the buck back so he could get out I found he had been 
as lucky as myself and was not hurt much. 

After I got the buck out and examined him, I found 
that the first shot had only broken his under jaw, 
and this it was which had enraged him so. 

I have always thought $ince then that it was a dan- 
gerous business to rush upon a deer while it can blink 
its eye or get up after you have wounded it : for in all 
my many encounters with bears and panthers I have 
never felt that I have been in a closer place or any 
nearer being killed than I have with mad deer. 



OF JOHN GASKINS, 47 



CHAPTER VI. 



MY KANSAS TRIP. 

I had been very prosperous and was getting- along 
well, which was an easy matter to do in those times. 
The country was thinly settled ; the range was good ; 
the climate warm. I had to feed my stock but little 
in the winter season, and had accumulated a good deal 
of stock around me. 

But I was like a great many other men who are 
doing- well in the world — wanted to do better. And 
about that time the Kansas fever struck this part of 
Arkansas. I heard so much about Kansas being a 
good grazing country for stock that I sold my farm 
and started to Kansas in company with my father-in 
law, William Scott, and a Mr. Robertson. This was 
in the year 185^. We took our families and all of our 
stock with us. Our purpose was to raise stock in 
Kansas. 

' We traveled on in a cheerful mood until we reached 
Spring river, in Missouri about twenty miles from the 



48 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

Kansas line. We stopped there for a few days, and 
while there saw a great many people leaving Kansas. 
We made some inquiry and were told of hot times out 
there; People were fighting and stealing and so on. 

We remained at Spring river a few days longer and 
1 studied the matter over and came to the conclusion 
that I was not into these Kansas troubles and did not 
want to get into them. So I went to my father-in-law 
and Mr. Robertson and said: 

"I think we had better go back to Arkansas." 

"We are of the same notion as you," said they. 
We all turned back, satisfied with what we had 
heard about Kansas. We came back to Carroll 
county. 

I stopped on Clifty creek, eight miles from where 
the famous Eureka Springs were discovered. It was 
late in the fall and there were no houses to be had, so 
I moved into a cave, or my "rock house" as I called 
it, until we could do better. There was not room 
enough for me to unload but one wagon while there. I 
had to be away from home a good deal, looking after 
my stock and trying to procure a house. 



A PANTHER AT OUR ROCK HOUSE. 
One night when I was absent from home there 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 49 

came a large panther prowling about. He finally 
jumped up on top of the cave. 

The. dogs could not get at him, but they made a 
terrible uproar. My wife called them to her and man- 
aged to quiet them. 

The panther, after growling and scratching around 
for a long time, finally went away. 

My children were badly frightened, but my wife, 
who was a brave little woman, was not scared. She 
remained up the balance of the night, watching and 
caring for the little ones. 

I then bought a small cabin and we moved to it, 
but did not have room there to unload but one wagon. 

I fixed up a temporary shed to the cabin, so that 
we could make. out. I then started two of my boys to 
a mill and store which was some eight miles distant 
to get flour and groceries, and also a gallon of whiskey. 



A HOT FIGHT WITH A BEAR. 

One Saturday evening soon after I got my supplies 
I told my wife that I would go up above the house on 
a hill, covered with a heavy growth of cedar, and kill 
a turkey for Sunday. We expected some of our rela- 
tives to visit us the next day. 

After telling the boys to tie up the dogs so they 
couldn't follow, I took my gun and started, and about 



50 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

three hundred yards from the house I heard a little 
noise in the cedars ahead of me. 

I paused a moment and presently saw a bear going 
along to the left of me. 

When the bear saw me he turned and trotted ovei 
the hill out of sight. 

"Boys! boys!" I called. ''Untie the dogs and let 
them come. There is a bear here." 

They untied the dogs and here they came, both 
boys and dogs yelling^. The dogs started on the track 
and though we followed them as fast as we could they 
soon got out of hearing. 

I thought they had gone over the mountain, but in 
a few minutes I heard a growl, and looked up and saw 
the bear and dogs. They came rolling down the side 
of the mountain in front of my house. 

My wife saw the dogs and the bear, but did not see 
us and had not heard me shoot. 

She picked up the axe. "You stay at the house," 
she said to the small children, "and I will go and help 
the dogs kill the bear." She had got about half way 
when the children all started after her, screaming for 
her to come back, that they were afraid. She stopped 
and went back with them. 

When myself and the boys came up they were still 
fighting and the bear had one of my dogs in his hug 
and I thought was squeezing him to death Another 



OF JOHN GASKINS. Si 

one of the dogs held the bear by the ear, while my old 
dog kept him down by catching him by the hind leg 
and jerking him back every time he got up. 

I couldn't see any place to shoot the bear without 
hitting a dog, so I laid my gun down. 

"We'll take rocks to him, boys." 

So we pelted him with rocks until we knocked out 
all his front teeth. By that time the dogs had got him 
down in the gulch on his back. I ran and got me a 
stout pole and stuck one end of it under a projecting 
rock and then down over the bear's neck. I had him 
then, and told the boys to hold down the pole, which 
they did. I stuck the bear with my knife and killed 
him. We took him to the house and skinned him and 
found him nice and fat. I thought that it was the best 
meat I had ever eaten. 

This was my first bear and I was mighty proud, 
and wanted to brag a little about it, and so started to 
take my father-in-law a piece of the meat. Passing 
Uncle Jack Reynold's on the way, I also stopped and 
presented him with a piece. Now, Reynolds was an 
old man, but had never killed a bear, and he says: 
"Gaskins, how did you kill it?" 
"My dogs caught it and held it while I stuck it with 

a knife." 

"What!" says he, and he looked as if he didn't be- 
lieve a word of it; but I insisted that it was the truth. 



52 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

There were two of his neighbors there, both stran- 
gers to me. They had lived there for several years 
before me, but were both afraid of bears, and they' 
looked at each other and w^inked. They thought I 
was lying, but I kept on, talking and rather boasting 
until I left. 

So early the next morning one of these men came 
to my house, and I knew in a minute what he had 
come for. So I says : 

"Come around and see mv bear skin: it is a nice 
t>ne. \"ou can see where I stuck it." 

I had been careful to leave the knife-hole in the 
skin, and he looked it all over until he was satisfied. 

"Do you find any bullet hole in the skin?" 

"No," says he, and walked off. 

We had then been in our cabin about six weeks, 
and my wife began to complain. She said: 

"There is no room here to spin or weave, and you 
must get another place." 

"We do not need to spin or weave. We have a 
plenty of bear meat, pork, deer, turkeys and cows, 
besides all the milk and butter we want. I am satisfied 
for I am just where I want to be," was my reply. 

A few days afterward I started out to look for my 
cattle, they having become scattered. The weather was 
dark and rainy. I rode all day until late in the even- 
ing, and was then so far away from home, not knowing 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 53 

the country, that I got lost. I would get into a gulch 
and follow it down to a creek, and then into another 
and it would lead down to the same creek every time, 
and finally I concluded to follow the creek down, and 
did so until I came to a farm and a house. 

I rode up to the house and called and an old man 
came to out. 

*'I am lost and want to get to Clifty," says I. 

'*You are nine miles from Clifty," says he. "You 
can hardly get there tonight, but you are very welcome 
to stay w^ith me until morning." 

The old gentleman's name was Hobbs, and I 
found him to be very talkative. He had lived on that 
creek for twelve years, and the creek was called Leath- 
erwood. During our conversation he told me that he 
wanted to sell out. I liked the appearance of the 
place very well, and had seen no better range for stock 
any where. So the next morning we looked around 
over his land and I bought two hundred acres of land 
from him one mile up the creek from where he lived. 
Forty acres was deeded land and the rest of it a claim. 
There was a small house on my forty, and a few acres 
in cultivation. 

I then went home and we reloaded our wagons and 
moved over to our new home. We were now settled 
again, and I was well pleased, for there was plenty of 
range for stock. There was no one living above me 



54 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

on the creek, and Mr. Hobbs the only one for miles 
below. I was surrounded with mountains and valleys 
covered with heavy timber and rich vegetation, and the 
country full of game of all kinds as well as wild ani- 
mals, such as bear^», pathers, wild cats and catamounts. 



THE BEARS ARE TOO NUMEROUS. 

I was fond of hunting but did not hunt much that 
spring and summer, for myself and boys were very 
very busy, clearing, fencing and getting our corn crop 
in. That spring I bought thirty-five head of hogs and 
turned them out on the range. A few days afterward 
I met Mr. Hobbs, and he says: 

"Gaskins, the bears will kill your hogs." 
"No," says I; "I will kill the bears." 
Then he went on to tell me that the bears would 
come to the pen and take the hogs out and carry them 
away. When I asked him where his dogs were all this 
time, he said that his dog would run out and get 
scared and then run back to the ho^use and under the 
bed. I told him that if my dogs did that way I would 
kill every dog-nabbed one of them and get me a new 
set. And then I continued : 

"I am going to kill these beais. They can't do me 
that way." 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 55 

He told others what I had said, that I was going to 
kill the bears, and they laughed and hooted at the idea. 

So along- that summer the bears did get to killing 
my hogs, and made way with about half of. them. The 
neighbors would say to me : 

•'Gaskins, thought you were going to kill the bears 
— why don't you do it?" 

"I will when the time comes," was my reply. "I 
am waiting tor them to get fat. Then I'll go for 'em.'"* 

I did not hunt much that summer only as I was 
passing about. 

r was out looking for my horses one day and went 
up a small branch through grass and vines. All at 
ance two large foxes come running right at me, growl- 
ing and snapping at my legs so viciously and so quick- 
ly that I thought they would bite me any way. 

I tried to shoot them, but they kept jumping so 
fast and so quick it was all I could do to keep them off 
of me by striking at them with my gun; but I finallv 
got a shot, and, though I missed them, thev ran off to 
their young ones near by. This is what caused them 
to make fight with me. 

A short time afterward I was at Mr. Hobbs' and 
told him about the toxes. He laughed heartilv. 

"Gaskins," says he. " you talk about killing bears 
and let two foxes get away with vou like that!" 



56 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 



CHAPTER V. 



MY FIRST BEAR HUNT. 

That fall I started out with my dogs to hunt bears. 
I hunted faithfully for three days and found none. I 
could find where they had been and knew they were 
there. So I kept on. 

On the fourth day my dog started a very large bear 
on a mountain'. It was so heavy and fat that it could 
hardly run and the dogs soon caught it. 

As they fought they rolled down the mountain un- 
til they finally got the bear into the gulch. I was go- 
ing as fast as I could and just before I got to them I 
heard one of my dogs howling, and found that he had 
his fore leg broken and was badly used up. 

I did not try to shoot the bear for fear of hitting my 
dogs, and the bear got up and staffed up the mountain 
again, with two of the dogs holding on to him, and the 
crippled one following after the best he could. 

After going for some distance, the bear went int(» 
a cave on the bench of the mountain. When I got 

r 



OB^ JOHN GASKINS. 57 

there the clogs were in there fighting him. I stooped 
clown and was listening at the battle within when I 
heard a noise behind me, and saw it was the crippled 
dog comiig on three legs. The brave fellow went 
right in the cave to help fight the bear. 

I could hear them but was afraid to shoot in there 
among the dogs. So I listened and waited, wich was 
all that I could do. 

Directlv I heard them coming. The place had got 
too hot for the bear. He came on ahead of the doo-s 
and I waited till he was about half w^ayoutof the hole 
and shot him. 

I did no more than break his shoulder. He rolled 
down the mountain a short distance and then stopped 
and started back up again. The dogs worried him till 
he could hardly get along, but he finally reached a high 
cliff. Here he stopped and picked up one of the dogs 
and threw him down the precipice. It must have been 
a hundred feet. 

The bear went on, there then being but one dog to 
bother him. 

I looked down the bluff, thinking the dog who had 
fallen so far was surely killed. But he got up and 
cauie on after the bear, and seemed scarce! v hurt. 

The bear went on about a ciu;irter of a mile and 
went into another cave. When I got there found the 
dogs had entered the cave and were in there shakincr 



58 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

the bear. He seemed to be so tired and worried that 
he paid but little attention to them. 

I called the dog's out and tied them and then shot 
the bear, hitting him in the mouth, but not killing him. 
It was now getting late, and my dogs were all so stiff 
and crippled up that I knew they could do no more 
then. So I carried logs and stopped up the hole so 
that he could not get out and then went to my horse, 
hitched a half mile away, and then to Mr. Tumlin's, 
still another mile away, and got his boy to go to my 
wife and tell her to send me some grub and blankets, 
as I was going into camp at the mouth of that cave. 
The boy also went to my brother-in-law's for help. 

I then went back to my dogs and my bear. Not 
long after\Yard, Scott came and several others with 
him. Scott was very excitable, and as soon as he got 
to me, he says; 

"John, I'll be dod-dinged if I don't hear him!" 

"Yes: he's in there." 

"Well," says he, "we'll take out the dogs and let 
him come out and I'll shoot blazes^of lightning out of 
him." 

"No, we wont do that," says I. My dogs are too 
sore and stiff. I dont want them to fight him any 
more." 

"Well," says he, "what arc you going to do?" 



OF JOHN GASKINS. i9 

'"Take out some of the logs and I'll show you, 
Scott," 

He did so. We made a little smoke at the mouth 
of the Cave, and by holding up blankets to keep the 
smoke in, soon had the bear pretty well smoked. He 
began to snuff and sneeze and groan. 

Then he became still and we could hear no more 
of him. We took all the logs away and Scott went 
in and with a stick punched the bear and found him 
dead, when we pulled him out and skined him. He 
would have weighed four hundred pounds, and was the 
fattest bear that I ever killed, for I kept his sides until 
the next summer and then they were six inches thick. 

My bear hunting had then commenced, and I kept 
it up, killing fifteen bears that winter and never losing 
a start. Some of them were regular old hog-eaters, 
too, which had been in there for years. The people 
soon began to believe that I could kill bears, and they 
began to call me "lucky John," and "honest John." 

"I think it is just good horse sense more than any 
thing else," I told them. 



FIVE BEARS IN TWO DAYS. 

I believe the best luck I ever had killing bears was 
ni the winter of 1887-8, on Clifty Creek, eight miles 



6o LIFE \ND A r^ VENTURES 

from where Hived. My "rock house," as I calied it. 
was over there, and I would go there and camp, stay- 
ing several days at a time. 

One mornnig I took my gun and gathering up my 
dogfs started from home. My son Sam went with me. 
We intended to be gone several days. Before we got 
to Clifty we killed two bears and hung them up and 
went to the rock house and camped. 

That night it snowed and we started" out next 
morning before it was early enough to see to shoot. 
Within a hunderd and fifty yards of the house I no- 
ticed my old "start" dog throw up his head and be- 
gin to snuff the air and then start out. 

I was satisfied that he scented bear. lie ran a 
short distance and in a few minutes he came back on 
the track and ran yelping over the hill, when he 
jumped an old she bear and two yearling-s. ' She made 
fight at him, 

I ran up near enough and shot her, breakii g her 
thigh. She rolled over a time or two ana tiien arose. 
The cubs ran off with two of the dogs after them. 

My little "Coly" was a dog had lately bought and 
he knew nothing about bear, but he wifnted to do some- 
thing so he ran up and grabbed the old she by the jaw. 
She shook him loose and threw him about ten feet 
away. lie got up running and I never saw a dog run 
so fast. 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 6i 

''Here Coly! Here Coly!" I called, but he never 
looked back, but ran only the faster, saying ''boo" at 
every jump. I kept on calling and he finally came 
back. This time he went over where the two old dog-s 
were fighting the yearlings, which they had caught. 
Coly took hold and did his best to help them. 

The old she made right for us. But she could not 
come very fast. My gun was still empty, but Sam 
had a small rifle, and while the bear w^as trying to get 
over a log about ten feet from us, he says: 

"Pap, let me shoot her," 

•'Go ahead," says I. 

So he fired, and shot her right in the sticking place 
and she fell back dead. 

I then ran to v.here the dogs were fighting the cub 
they had caught. 

"Give me my knife, Sam, till I stick it," says I! 
but turned and saw Sam was not there. But presently 
become up, saying: 

"Pap, i shot her in in the sticking place, sure 
enough." The boy had stopped to examine the dead 
'bear. 

I took the knife and stuck the Cub, and we started 
the dogs after the other one and soon tracked it downi 
and killed it. 

This made five bears we had killed, and only out 
one night from home. 



62 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

We dragged our bear all into camp and skinned 
them. We only had one horse there and we packed 
himiip with meat and Sam went home and got another 
horse, and we both returned that night. 

I thought seven hundred pounds of meat was joret^y 
good for two days. 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 



CHAPTER VIII. 



MY BEAR CHASE. 

My self, Thomas Clark, Willam Shelton and 
Joseph Shelton all started out one snowy day to hunt 
bear and if we found any we went to have a chase, I 
taking my dogs, which were all well trained. I did 
not keep any other sort. 

We had gone only a short distance when we struck 
a bear track and we followed it for about three miles 
when we came to where some other dogs were follow- 
ing the same track. 

My dogs all left the track and came back to us ex- 
cept one small dog that I called the ' 'preacher," and 
he was a good one, too. 

He kept on the track until he treed the bears in a 
hole or cave. He went in, but, finding they were too 
much for him, he came out and started back to us. 

We had .been following on, and met "preacher." 

He turned back and we followed him and found 
that the bears were in the hole. 



64 LIFE AND ADXTNTURES 

We did not try to g^et them out then but stopped up 
the hole to keep them in there and then went on, for 
V. e'^were still wanting^ to have a chase. 

We kept g'oing until we came to where there was 
a large pigeon roost and there my old '\start" dog 
struck another bear track, which we followed for about 
half mile and came again to where some one else was 
following the same track. 

But we could see that there were no dosfs on the 
track, so went on a short distance and found where 
the bear had been killed by two men whom I saw 
saw several dogs afterward, and they told me howthev 
killed it. The bear was in a large oak tree which was 
very leaning and had a large hole in the body of it and 
the bear was in there and they, coming up to the tree 
and making a little noise, he stuck his head out at the 
hole, he said. 

He then shot him and he fell l)ack but soon came 
out again and he shot him the second time, killing' 
him. 

The bear weighed o\er three hundred pounds and 
had br(/.ight him seventy-five dollars at Peirce Citv. 

We, after finding where the bear had been killed, 
gave up our chase and went home, and it being 
Christmas week we still thought that we would ha.ve 
some sport, or fun, with the bears which we had stop- 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 65 

ped up in the cave. So I sent word around to the 
neighbors and we all agreed on a certain day to meet 
at the cave. 

By nine o'clock in the morning there were between 
thirty and forty gathered at the cave-men, w^omen and 
children — to see me tie the yearlings, for I had told 
them that I thought we could kill the old she and I 
could tie the two yearlings and take them home, with 
me. My plan was, to tie the yearlings by putting a 
short fork across their necks, pinning them down to the 
ground while two strong men would pull their legs 
back and I would tie them. I told a Mr. Babbit how to 
to prepare the fork while Claiborn Ash and Sam Gas- 
kins were to pull their legs back for tying. 

After getting everything ready the fun was now to 
commence. So taking a light, we went in the cave, 
but found no bear. We then examined the cave and 
found a small hole or opening leading farther back and 
the bears were back in there. Now the question was, 
how were we to get them out. The hole was small, 
only large enough for one man to crawl in, so we 
came out again. 

We then made a torch of rich pine and two of the 
men crawled in the hole, and soon as the light was 
pushed in to where the bears were the old she slapped 
it out with her paw, leaving them in the dark; and 
having no room to shoot they had to back out. 



66 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

I told them then not to go in there any more; that 
we would try to get them out some other way. So 
we then got a long pole and withed a torch on the end 
of that and pushed it in the hole, but that did no good, 
for as soon as the torch was in reach of her she bit 
and slapped it all out, burning her paws and mouth 
badly. 

It was then getting late in the evening and the most 
of the crowd had gone home, leaving only myself and 
those that were concerned in the hunt there. I then 
told them that we would smoke them out. So we 
made a little smoke at the mouth of the smoke hole 
and then held up blankets to keep the smoke in. 

The old bear soon came out through the opening 
and fell over dead. We dragged her out and, taking 
out her entrails as quick as possible, hung her up. 

We then made another torch and two of the men 
crawled back in the hole, expecting to find the year- 
lings dead also, but when they got in to where they 
were they were yet alive, and made fight at them, and 
they had to back out again. 

I told them then that we would stop them up in 
there and go home and come back the next day and 
try gettmg them out. So we did, and went back the 
next morning thinking we could probably get them 
out alive and have some fun with them yet. 

Pretty soon the old bear came out through the open- 



OP JOHN GASKIKS. 67 

ing and fell over dead. We then dragg^ed her out 
and, taking out her entrails as quick as possible, hung 
her up; 

We then made another torch and two of the men 
crawled back in the hole, expecting to find the 3^ear- 
lings dead also, but when they got in there they were 
still alive. They made fight and the men had to 
crawl back out again. 

I told them then that we would stop them up in 
t'lere and go home, coming back the next day and try 
getting them out. So we did the next morning. 

After prepaiing a torch two of the men crawled 
into the hole again, and the bears made fight as be- 
fore. The men then shot one of the bears, pulling it 
out with them. It was then decided to send my dog, 
the * "preacher," in the hole alone. Tige. another one 
of my dogs, was to go in and help "preacher." if 
he was about to get the worst of the fight. In a few 
moments I heard "pieacher" give a fierce growl. 

" Untie Tige in a hurry," I said to the men. 

And in he went and we could hear them both figrht- 
ing and the bear begging, but it was a long while 
when the bear came out, both of the dogs holding to 
him. But it being smoky in the cave and hardly any 
air, the dogs we.ie about done for. Just as one of them 
fell over we stuck the bear and killed it, pulling the 
dogs out to the air as quickly as possible. 



68 LIFE AND AOVENTURES 

We now had about five hundred pounds of nice 
meat for our trouble. I then told my neighbors that 
I did not care for mv hogs, for I had more than fifteen 
hundred pounds of bear meat in my smokehouse, be- 
sides all the deer and turkey that we wanted. 

It was then that they began to call me Uncle Johnny 
Gaskins, "the bear hunter," a name which has clung 
to me ever since. 

From 1859 to 1S66 I did but very little bear hunting 
and which I will give a short history of hereafter. 



THREE INDIANA BOYS. 

In the fall of 1S67, one Saturday evening, three- 
men drove up to my house and inquired ; 

" Does Uncle Johnny Gaskins live here?" 

I went out and told them he did, and they told me 
that they were from near Indianapolis, Indiana, and 
had been in Arkansas for two weeks hunting bear, but 
could not find any. They said they had been sent to 
me with the impression that if there were any bear in 
the country I could find them. 

I then asked them who they were and they told me. 
which was Alphus, Burt and Abel Toll)ert, and said 
they were very anxious to kill a bear to take back 
home. They wanted me to go with them and help^( t 
one. 



OF JOHN GASRIKS. 69 

I told them that I could not go then for I had been 
Summoned to court at Carrollton on Monday, and 
1 would be gone probably the whole week, but would 
go with them after returning. So they went back to 
Cassville, Missouri, where the\' were stopping. 

In about ten days they came back, and Alphus, 
who was the oldest, said to me : 

"Uncle Johnny, here we are. We have grub and 
everything prepared to last us a week, and if you" will 
just go along and help us get a bear we will pav you 
anything in reason." 

I told him I was ready to go and sent one of mv 
boys with them to the Sycamore springs, four miles 
distant, which was a good place to camp. 

Taking my dogs and gun I went across the moun- 
tains, thinking I might find bear or see some sign of 
them, but found none, and went on to the springs 
where they were camped. 

The next morning we started out and hunted all 
day faithfully, but found no bear. So that night I 
told the boys that we would have to move our camp : 
that there were no bear in these woods. 

The next morning we sent Abel Tolbert with the 
wagon and camp outfit to a vacant house which was 
about two miles below theres and we told him to have 
plenty of turnips cooked for our dinner. 

Alphus, Burt and myself started on a hunt, we g » 



70 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

ing across the country until we reached the Trace ho!* 
low. After starting up the mountain we were as 
quiet as possible watching the dog, when my old 
'•start" dog and the ''preacher" both jumped upon a 
large pine log, and were scenting along. Burt noticed 
them and walked up to the log, when suddenly he 
threw up his hands and hollowed to me: 

''Lord have mercy, Uncle John! Just come here; 
I never saw s- much bear sign in my life." 

"No," I savs. " But can't you be still, for we are 
going to get into it now," 

The dogs started up the mountain and us after them 
in a run. After we got to the top we heard the dogs 
and, bv looking across the gulch, we could them after 
the bear. 

Alphus then got excited. Throwing up his hands 
he says: 

"Look I Look! Uncle John, I see the bear; I see 
him. The dogs have got him." 

Alphus and Burt both went on a run. 

"Don't shoot among my dogs," I hollowed after 
them. 

Burt got to them first. He threw his gun down and, 
taking his knife, he ran up to vvhere the dogs and bear 
were fighting. Putting his knee between the dogs and 
the bear he stuck the bear and ripped up, cutting the 
bear open. 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 71 

By this time Alphas got there and he was still ex- 
cited. He ran up and cut the bear open on the other 
side, killing it. 

Just as I ofot there Burt bent back and hollowed as 
loud as he could : 

" Hurrah for General Grant. We are the Union 
men that can kill them. Uncle John." 

"Yes, that's it," I said. 

I never saw two boys prouder than they were over 
that bear. They had run until the swxat was running 
down their faces. 

I told them to take the entrails out of the bear and 
we would go on try to get another. 

We started the dogs on track of the other two bears, 
and in a short time heard them ^oing over the moun- 
tain. 

Alphus and Burt were both wild. They started on 
a run up the steep and rough mountain-side. I walked 
on behind, but could hear nothing of them when I 
reached the top. They had run down into the gulch 
after the two old hounds, which had fooled them. 
Burt had thrown his knee cap out of place and could 
hardly walk when I found him. 

"You go on to the house," says I, "and bring the 
mules to where the bear is waiting." 

When we got the dead bear to the house w^e found 
that Abel, sure enough, had cooked turnips. 



72 LIP^E AND ADVENTURES 

They started to Cassville that night, taking the bear 
with them. They said they would put it in a box and 
take it to Indiana. Alphus wanted his father to see it 
just as it had been killed. 

A few years afterward they all moved to Missouri, 
settling near Cassville, and as long as they lived they 
never forgot that bear hunt. 



ANOTHER BIG HUNT. 

Squire Haggert, one of my neighbors, always 
wanted to take a bear -hunt with me, so we made ar- 
rangements to go. 

I took all of my dogs with me. It was not long un- 
til the dogs struck the track of what we thought was a 
bear and run it into a den, near where the town of 
Eureka Springs now stands. When we got there, the 
dogs were in the den, fighting. We could not get to 
them, and so we waited for some time, and as they 
came out, we would tie them one by one. 

We then carried logs and stopped up the den and 
went home to get help. I had aheady employed two 
men, Mr. Cordell and Mr. Saylor, to take out bear for 
me from the dens. I gave them halt of the meat. 
They were always ready to go into any kind of a 
place after a bear. I started after these two men and 
met my brother-in-law, Scott. 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 73 

''Vou let me go in there and bring 'em out," said 
he, insisting so hard that I finall}^ consented. 

We began to take out the logs and Scott says: 

"John, it's been gnawin' the logs. And here is fur 
on the logs. I'll be dod-dinged if there's anything in 
there but a catamount or wild cat." 

"Yes," says I, "there's a bear in there and you had 
better be careful." 

We took all the logs away and Scott started in, de- 
claring he could kill all there was in there with his 
knife. 

" You take your gun," says I. "You never know 
what's in a cave," And I made him take it. 

Sam Gaskins went with him. When they got back 
about fifty feet, all at once they heard a terrible growl- 
ing and scratching behind some rocks that they could 
not see over. So they came out. 

"John," says Scott, 'I'll be dod-dinged if there 
ain't somethmg in there. It's ni there and I'll not go 
in there anymore unless you'll take your big gun and 
go in with me." 

"No, I can't go in there," says I, looking at Squire 
Haggert, who was standing there. 

"Gaskins," says the squire, "I can't go in there for 
I promised my wife last night that I would not go in." 

"Weil then," says I, "we can leave it there and go 
home." 



74 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

"No, no;" says the squire, "we won't do that' 
John, if you will go in, I will go w^ith you." 

"All right," says I, and we started in together. We 
had got only a short distance when we heard that same 
fierce growling and scratching, but could see nothing. 

"I think it's a panther," says I; "and some of us 
will get hurt." Then I turned around and walked 
out and they all followed me. We were both afraid 
to go back. 

"I am not obliged to risk my life in this place I ad- 
ded on the outside ; "but I'll see Cordell ai.dSaylor. 
Let's stop up the hole." 

The next day I came again with Cordell and Saylor. 
They went in and met a large panther, and both 
emptied their guns at it without killing it, when it 
crawled behind the rock again. They reloaded their 
guns and walked up to the rock, putting their guns 
close to the panther's head before they fired, killing it 
dead. 

"Gaskins, how will we divide the meat this time?" 
they all asked after they had dragged the big fellow 
outside. "You can take it all," says I. 

A few days afterward I saw Squire Haggert. "If 
you ever go bear hunting with me again," says I, "you 
must be sure to get your wife's consent to go inside, 
before we start." 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 75 

JIMMY TOMLIN'S ADVENTURE. 

I was often out in 'the mountains several days at a 
time hunting for bear and deer, especially when there 
was snow on the ground. I had just been out on a 
hunt for two days and come home tired, when m came 
little Tommy Tumlins and said : 

"Brother Mart wants you to go and help him get a 
bear, which he has been following for three miles." 

There was a crust of ice on the snow at that time, 
and bears would break through, cutting their feet and 
making them bleed. I said to Tommy: 

-I cannot go, for my dogs^are in no fix; and, be- 
sides, I am in no fix myself." 

"Oh Uncle Johnny," he said, "you must go and 
help Mart," and begged so hard that I finally told 

him I would go. ^ 

I got up and put on my shoes and leggms and 
started out with my dogs, having to go up the creek 
by old Jimmy Tomlin's, Mart's father. I went m to 
get Jimmy to go with me. 

"Gaskins," he said, "I would like to see a bear 
chase and I will take my dogs and go with you." 

I looked at him and thought: "Well, you won't go 
very far," for he had on an old pair of cotton pants^ 
an old cottbn hunting shirt and an old pair of shoes 
with the soles nearly worn off. I said to him : 



76 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

'' Come on and go. We'll get that bear sure.'" 

He called up his dogs and we started. The road, 
for some distance, was tramped down, making very 
good traveling. But as soon we left the road and 
started up the mountain it was so slick that it was al- 
most impossible to get along. I was before the old 
man and kept looking back to see if he was coming. 

Hearing a noise behind me I looked around and 
there was the old man down on his back. His straw 
hat was off and his feet were up in the air. He was 
going the other way pretty fast, cursing and swearing. 
Finally he straddled a sapling w^iich stopped him. 
When he had gathered himself up he hollowed to me : 

"I am. going home." 

^' Oh, no," says I, "Uncle Jimmy you can make it. 
Try it again," and I w^ent down to where he was. 

We got some farther up this time when the old 
man's feet slipped again and away he went, straddling 
another sapling and cursing worse than ever. 

When his aogs heard all the fuss they came romp- 
ing down upon him and knocked him down. I could 
hardly keep the old man from heari;ig me laugh for it 
was funnier than any bear hunt to me. Finally the 
old man got up again and says: 

"Gaskins the bear may go to h — 1; I am going 
home." 

"All right," says I, "and take your dogs with you." 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 77 

I went on up the mountain and soon found Mart. 

"Where's Dad?" he asked. 

"He fell down the mountam," I answered, "and 
swore that the bear could go to h — 1." 

My dogs were now out of hearing, but we started 
on. Looking across on the other mountain we saw 
two of the dogs coming back. I told Mart not to be 
discouraged, for my old dog would stay with tlie bear. 

The two that were coming back had been crippled 
the day before and could not run much, but I knew 
the old dog would never leave the track, so we went 
on some distance and stopped to listen. We could 
hear the old dog baying the bear off to the left of us. 

We then quit the trail and went off across the moun- 
tains in that direction. Finally we came to high cliff 
and could hear the dog down under the ledge, but 
could not get to him. 

"Mart," says I, "we'll go farther around the moun- 
tain and find a place where we can get down." 

We started on a run and had only gone a short dis- 
tance when we met the bear coming up. 

"Shoot him. Mart," I hollowed. 

Mart raised his gun, taking deliberate aim, hitting 
the bear just above the eye. 

This only staggered him ; but the old dog, who had 
followed the bear uj), caught him by the hind leg and 



78 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

pulled him down again. The bear soon got loose and 
started up again. 

It was now my time to shoot, but I thought I would 
wait till the bear got up in good position so that I 
could shoot him in the heart. 

Just as I was about to shoot my two crippled dogs 
came running up and took hold of the bear. One 
grabbed his lower jaw and the other her ear. 

I fired, but hit him too high up, and this made him 
just mad enough to kill all my dogs, and I knew he 
would do it. He wheeled around and took one of the 
dogs by the head and the other in his hug. 

This was more than I could stand. I ran up to the 
bear and put my gun against him and shot. I then 
looked around and saw fhat Mart was about to shoot. 
But he changed his mind and handed the gun to me, 
when I ran up and shot the bear again. This made 
four shots in him, but he was yet killing my dogs." 

"Mart, take my knife," says I, "and cut bim all to 
pieces." 

He took the knife ; but, dog-nab him, he was so ex- 
cited that he hardly knew w^hat he was doing. He ran 
up and, raising the knife as high as he could, would 
plunge it into the bear, saying each time: 

"That will do; that will do," until he had struck 
the bear five times, when it fell over. Mart's eyes 
were popped out and he looked scared. 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 79 

I pulled the dog out of the bear's hug. He was 
alive, but badly hurt. We skinned the bear and left it 
there until morning. I got home with my crippled 
dogs about 10 o'clock. 

I did not hunt any more for some time. Along in 
the spring I was out a good deal after bear and wolves, 
but could never get old Jimmy Tomlins to go with me 
any more to see a bear chase. 



CATCHING THE CUBS. 

About the first of May is the time when the old she 
bear leaves her den with her cubs, which are then 
large enough to follow. So one spring I told the boys 
we would go out and try to catch some cubs. 

We started out one morning and had not gone verj^ 
far until we struck a bear track, which we followed 
for more than a mile and w^as finally about to give up. 

We stopped and I was looking down the 23oint of 
the ^mountain when I saw an old she bear get up with 
one cub. It was too far to shoot so I set the doers 
after her. As soon as she saw them coming she 
picked up the cub in her mouth and started off in a 
run, and ran about three hundred yards when the dogs 
overtook her. She then put down the cub and whip- 
ped it up a tree, after which she ran on and the dogs 
after her. 



So LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

I and my son Thomas ran down to the tree. 

"Dad, you kill the cub," says Tom, "and I'll run 
on to where the dogs are fighting the bear." 

I stopped and tied my coat around the tree to keep 
the cub from coming dowai. Then I started ahead, 
but met one of the dogs coming back to the tree 
wheae the cub was. I went back with the dog for I 
wanted to save my cub. 

The cub would come down to my coat and stop, 
but I kept working with it until I finally got a hold. 
After I had pulled it down I wrapped my coat around 
it and put it under my arm, holding by the neck with 
one hand. But it scratched me so that I had to put it 
down. 

I thought then I would tie it but I found that I could 
not hold it with one hand and tie with the other, and 
•I did not know v/hat to do. It was crying and beg- 
ging so for its mother that I did not know how soon 
she would be on to me, but I picked it up and started 
on, it scratceing and clawing me all the while. 

Finally I thought of an old camp near by. Ater I 
got to the camp I put my cub under ^ large iron kettle 
and left it there. 

After this I started to find Thomas, but did not go 
very far before I met him and the dogs. 

"Have you got the old bear?" I asked Tom. 

"No," he says, she got away from me. 



OF JOHN GASKIKS. 8i 

We then went back to the camp and got the cub. 
We tied it and had no trouble getting it home, 

W^e went back the next day to look for the old she, 
hut I could not strike her trail. Along in the evening 
we struck the trail of an old she and her cubs, but it 
being so late we called the dogs off and went into 
camp. The next morning we started out before clay* 
light. 

We had got back to about half-way where he had 
left the trail the evening before, when the dogs ran 
down in a hollow and scared up an old she with her 
two cubs. She made fight with the dogs. 

We all started down on a run toward them, but the 
boys got there first. Thomas tried to shoot her but 
his gun wouldn't fire, and Jimmy had just missed her 
with his revolver w*hen I got to them. I had met the 
cubs coming up the hollow, but I had let them pass» 

The old she caught one of my dogs and hurt him 
so badly that as soon as he got loose he came running 
by me yelling. 

"Tige," I called, and he came running back to me. 
"Tige, dog-nab you, take her," and he ran back and 
took hold of the bear again. 

She ran up the hollow, the dogs after her. I had 
no chance to .shoot and she turned and came back 
toward me. 

"Get out of the way!" I called and all the boys 



82 LIFE AND ADVENTURES. 

climbed up the bank but Jimmy, who climbed up on a 
log and shot at the bear striking her in the eye. 

This made her madder and she plunged at him and 
would have got him, but one of the dogs caught her 
by the jaw. 

She turned and went for the dogs, catching one in 
her hug. She was killing it. I had got to her by this 
time and placing my rifle against her side sent the 
bullet through her. 

Thomas stabbed her five times with his knife and 
she fell over dead. 

I pulled my dog out of her hug and he was dead 
also, and the other dogs were badly crippled. 

We sent Thomas to the camp after the horses and 
Jimmy and I began to skin her. Before we were 
through we heard the cubs calling for their mother. 

"We will go after the cubs." says I. We found 
them. 

"Catch one," says I. As soon as Jimmy would 
get to one and put out his hand, it would turn and 
fight. 

Finally we caught one and tied it and carried it 
back to the old bear, and finished skinning her. 

Next morning we went back and by hollowing like 
a cub succeeded in finding and catching the other. 

But I must go back to the evening before and tell 
our mishap in getting our meat home. 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 83 

My horse was foolishly afraid of fresh meat, so I 
blind-folded him and packed all the bear meat on him 
besides a large dead turkey which I tied to the horn 
of the saddle. 

The horse led along all right for a mile or two and 
then I got sorry for him, with such a load on, and 
blind-folded. 

So I took off the blind-fold and started on. 
The horse looked back and saw the load' on his 
back and began to rear and plunge sc I thought he 
would kill himself. When he goi everything off ex- 
cept the saddle he ran away and we caught him a half 
mile from where he started. He was so frightened 
that he trembled all over. 

We straightened up the saddle and gathered up 
our scattered meat, put it in a large sack and tied it on 
his back with ropes, finally getting it all home. But 
that was enough for me. I never tried to catch any 
more cubs, finding it to be a dangerous business. 

I sold one cub in a tew days for $15, and the other 
two in September for $50. 

My best trained dog was now gone and the others 
all crippled, so I quit hunting till the next fall and 
winter, raising more dogs for future huntino-. 

I was always anxious for the time to come when I 
could hunt again. The baying of the dogs amor.g 
the hills was a delightful sound to me. 



S4 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

FIVE SWAMP BEARS. 

Late the next fall myself and Thomas went to 
Clifty to our rock house and camped over night. We 
had four dogs with us. 

During the night I woke up and heard the bears 
tramping^ over our cave. Their growling and scraping 
agamst the opposite bluff made a terrible noise. The 
dogs began to growl, so I got up for it w^as dark and I 
wanted to keep the dogs quiet and inside with me. I 
inanaged to keep them quiet and after awhile the bears 
w^ent away. 

By daylight we had our breakfast and was ready to 
go after them. 

Before we had gone a half mile I looked across to 
the other mountain and there I saw five bears all stand- 
ing straight up looking at us, and there was a deep 
gulch between them and us so we would have to go 
around to get to them. 

''Pap," says Thomas, ''what makes them look at 
us that way." 

"They are counting our dogs," says I. 

Then we started around the gulch and I kept 
motioning the dogs across the gulch and finally two of 
the younger ones crossed and chased the bears over 
the hill out of sight. 

We followed as tast as we could and met the two 
dogs coming back. They had got up with the bears 



OF JOHN GAKTNS. 85 

and were whipped. The bears were not in sight. 

"They are gone to re-inforce," said I, "and we 
must re-inforce before we follow them." So we went 
home. 

The next day a man of the name of Harp got after 
the same five bears and ^ot two of his dogs killed. 
They went on into the neighborhood of Kingston, kill- 
ing several dogs there. The last I heard of them they 
were thirty miles away and still going, for they were 
swamp bears and not afraid of as many dogs as could 
be put after them. They were all old, large fellows 
and could kill a dog directly. 

But I w^as too smart for them and they didn't kill 
any of my dogs. My experience in bear hunting, had 
already taught me to not get excited when I saw bears 
or to rush up on them when there were too many to- 
gether. I always tried to save my dogs all I could. 
And then bears, coming from the swamps in the 
southern part of the state, go in gangs. Tliey will 
fight anything, so i let thern go, thinking the best plan 
was to let good-enough alone. 



AN EXCITING STORY. 



I w^ll now give the reader an excitable story. I w^as 
not in it, but it was related to me by the parties 
themselves and is g^iven by their j^ermission. 



86 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

James Harp, or Squire Harp, as he was called, was 
a great deer hunter, It was in the winter of 1868 that 
Harp struck a bear trail towards Clifty and treed the 
bears in a den. 

He went on after James and Leroy Todd, and found 
them at dinner, eating back-bones. 

"You sit right down there," said James Todd, 
jumping vip from the: table with a bone in his hand; 
"we've got to go and get those hears. I love bear 
meat better than anything. Why, squire, its the best 
meat in the world, and now we can have it all winter. 
I've heard old bear hunters say that when a bear was 
in a cave that way you could go right in and feel all 
over them and pick out the fattest and kill it with your 
knife and the others would never move. Eat, squire, 
and we'll go at once and get one." 

"I don't know as I like that arrangement," says 
Squire Harp. 

"Oh, come, now, don't go back on us, squire; I 
will go in and kill the bear. All I ask is for you to 
carry the light." 

The three men found the den smoking from the 
breath of the bears. ' 

"Now, I don't like this," says Harp, "It looks to 
me too much like going to death." 

"Oh, no, there not a bit of danger; I'll go in there 
first and you needn't be afraid." 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 87 

" They had just got inside when Todd cried: "There 
is a bear coming," and he turned and ran over Harp 
to get to the hole first. 

As soon as he cleared the hole he looked back and 
saw the bear coming, and then he ran about thirty 
yards to a tree, when he sat down on the ground and 
threw his arms and legs about the body of the tree, 
thinking he was safe. The bear, who was as bad 
scared as Todd, ran away. 

But poor Harp, who had been run over by both 
Todd and the bear, turned around to go out, when he 
stepped on an old she, and in an instant she was right 
up and at him. 

His torch light was all that he had to defend him- 
self with. He would strike her in the mouth and face 
with that as often as she came at him. Then he would 
jump back and cry: "Oh, Lord." 

As soon as the bear got tired of being struck with 
the blazing torch she turned and ran out of the cave, 
and Leroy Todd shot her and she fell right there. 

The sound of the shot seemed to wake up Jim Todd 
for he jumped up and ran to Leroy and he says : 

"The squire is dead, Leroy. He is dead and we 
will have to get more help." 

"I'm not dead, either," says the voice of the squire 
from the cave. 

So they pulled away the bear, which had fallen in 



88 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

the mouth of the cave, and let the squire out. 

Squire Harp himself said that if both his ears had 
been cut off that minute he don't believe that he would 
have bled a drop. The bear had not hurt him, and he 
had bruised his head and shoulders in jumping back to 
get aw^ay from her. 

There were still three bears left in the cave, but 
they never tried to get them out, but pledged them- 
selves to never go into another hole after a bear. 
That was the first experience and would be their last. 

Now I say I am personally acquainted with these 
parties and believe them to be truthful and responsi- 
ble men, but certainly no bear hunters. 



A FRUITLESS CHASE. 



About the year 1870, Mr. Dunlap, who lives at 
Beaver on White River, told me that there was on old 
bear over there killing his hogs. He wanted me to go 
over and kill it for him. 

"You let me know as soon ds you miss another 
hog," says I, so late one Saturday evening about the 
loth of May he came to me and said another hog had 
been killed by the bear. He wanted me to go right 
over there then and kill it. 

"It's too late this evening, but I'll be there early in 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 89 

the morning with my dogs," said I. When I went 
over I was accompanied by Mr. Platner and my boys 
Thomas and Jimmy. We had four of my dogs, all of 
them being m good fix. 

We had reached a high point along the river, when 
I saw my old "start" dog throw up his head and 
begin to scent around. 

"There's a bear close about," says I. 

We tied the other dogs and let old Starfgo over 
the hill, and in a few minutes we heard him give a 
loud bark. Then we untied the other dogs and away 
they went, and in a few minutes more they all came 
back right towards us with a bear which they were 

fighting. 

The bear never stopped until he got aown the 
mountain. Then he stopped and began killing my 
dogs and soon had two of them hurt so bad they 
couldn't get up and biting "preacher" across the top 
of the head so that he left about half of the skull bone 

naked. 

The old dog was all the one left unhurt. 

The bear then went on with the old dog after him, 
and the "preacher" following, but he was so badly 
hurt that he soon came back. 

We followed on all day and late in the evening 
came up with them, but I could not get a shot and 
gave it up, and hunted no more until next winter. 



90 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 



"PREACHER" GOES ON THE RETIED LIST. 



One evening about Christmas Mr. Babbit and Mr. 
Platner came and told me they thought they had 
tracked two bears into a thicket and wanted me to go 
with them. So the next morning I took all of my 
dogs and they took one, and when we got to the 
thicket we tied all the dogs except the old ''start" dog. 
We sent him in and stationed ourselves aroud the 
thicket. In a few minutes we heard him bark and 
out they came, but with only one bear. 

We then let all the dogs loose and the old dog 
and the "preacher" caught the bear and were rolling 
him down the moutain, when the other dogs got there. 

They soon had the bear down into -the gulch out of 
sight, but Babbit being nearest to them heard one of 
the dogs hollow and ran down. They had the bear 
fast and dowui in the gulch 

Babbit who was right over the bear reached his gun 
down and shot it. But seeing that the bear had the 
"preacher" in his hug and that the shot had not 
killed it he killed the bear with his knife and pulled 
the "preacher" out of his hug. 

When I got there I found the "preacher" bleeding. 
There was a hole in his breast. We found that the 
bullet had struck the bear's shoulder blade and run 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 91 

around and down his foreleg and into the dog, wound- 
ing him. 

I was sorry for my dog and took him to my son-in- 
law, Thomas Clark, who lived near by. 

"Make this dog a pallet in the house by the fire 
and feed him bread and butter until he gets well," 
said I. 

When the "preacher" got well I put him on the 
retired list, never taking him out any more. He 
lived a long time, but never needed or wanted for 
attention, and fianlly died an honorable and natural 
death. 

Babbit and I divided the bear half and half. It 
was nice and fat, but I w^ould much rather saved my 
dog than to have had all the bear at that time. I 
was always a great fellow for my dogs, and did hate 
to loose a good one like the "preacher." He was 
the best dog of his size I ever owned and I always 
thought it was because a good preacher of the name of 
Joseph Helton gave him to me. 



92 • LIFE AND ADVENTURES 



CHAPTER IX. 



A CATAMOUNT. 

One day in the month of September I was hunting 
horses in the gulch where the street, now called 
Main or "Mud," lies in the town of Eureka Springs. 

The grass and vines were so thick that I could 
hardly get along. I was leading my dog with a 
rope. 

All at once I was startled by a large catamount 
raising up in the grass before me. I unloosed the 
dog, and he ran it under a large shelving rock a 
short distance away. , 

I found the dog could oniy get to the catamount 
with his head, so I got me a long joole and punched 
it out so the dog could get hold of it. 

He brought it out and then they both reared up 
like two dogs fighting, and the dog threw it back, 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 93 

siezed it by the breast and killed it. I was surprised, 
for I expected to see them fight awhile, and thought 
that if it got the best of my dog I would help him out, 
Nbut I was disappointed that time. 

After he had killed i t I saw near by a nice deer 
which was partly eaten up, and I knew then it had 
been watching its meat. This was the cause of its 
making fight with us. 

Not long after that I was going along one day on 
the side of a mountain. My dog had run ahead of me 
and was out of sight. 

All at once I heard a tremendous noise and my 
dog yelling. I went as fast as I could go, thinking it 
was a bear. When f got in sight I saw a large eagle 
which had its claws fastened in each side of the dog's 
head and was beating him to death with its wings. 

I did not wait to see them fight, but picked up a 
pine knot and hit the eagle on the head about three times 
before he let the dog go. Then I beat him to death. 

Looknig around I found the carcass of a deer,which 
he had been watching as I had supposed. 

I took the eagle home and measured it. It was 
eight feet from the tip of one wing to the other. 

The next fall I found out, or think I did, how the 
eagle managed to kill the deer. 

I was walking, along quietly deer hunting when I 
heard a noise and looked ahead of me. Three deer 



94 I^IFE AND ADVENTURES 

were running toward me, with their tongues out, 
nearly run down. 

I thought wolves were after them and waited, hop- 
ing to get a shot. As the deer ran by I saw a hirg-e 
eagle swoop down upon one of the yearlings, almost 
knocking it down. 

Following them, I found there were two ^ of the 
eagles, and first one and then the other would swoop 
down and strike the young deer on the head. It would 
try to dodge and then run on. 

I followed, expecting to find where one of the year- 
lings hrtd been killed, but never got up w^ith them. I was 
satisfied, though, that they did kill one or both before 
they stopped. 

One day in the last of December when there was 
a heavy snow on the ground I went out to Hok fo.i 
my hogs. I had heard that the bears were killing 
them. 

On the side of a rough, steep mountain, about a 
mile up the creek, I heard a noise above me. It 
sounded like a large ox walking. 

It was a large bear and he came right toward me. 

I had my gun but no dog with me. 

When he got within thirty steps I fired, aiming at 
his heart. I expected to see him fall, but he only 
growled and champed his teeth and started right toward 
me again. 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 95 

Now I did not know what that meant. I began to 
feel scared, and to feel my hat raise on my head. My 
gun was einpty. If 1 undertook to run I would have 
certainly killed myself, the mountain was so steep and 
rough. 

I knew what I did must be done immediately, so I 
went to reloading ni}' gun as fast as possible. I 
watched the bear, too. 

When he got within ten steps of me he* stopped 
again. I raised my gun intending to shoot him 
through the brain, but my nerves were a little shaky 
and there was a brush in the way. 

I missed his head entirely and shot him in the 
shoulder, breaking it. 

He fell and rolled over and got up with his head 
the other way and started back. The blood spurted 
out of his shoulder at every step. I felt good then, 
sure, and did not try to follow him but went home 
after my dogs. 

I put the dogs on his track and followed him eight 
miles to Clifty and finally lost him. 



THE LARGEST BEAR I EVER SAW. 



Uncle Alah Jackson was living in this part of the 
country long before I came here. He was an old bear 
hunter in these mountains and I learned a great deal 



9^ IJFE AND ADVENTURES 

from him about hunting bear. 

We had several good bear hunts together; although 
he was orettlnsf old he still loved to hunt. 

We often camped together ai d would la}' and talk 
half the night, he telling me about his bear scrapes 
which were very interesting to me, for I loved to hunt, 
too, and especially for bears, which were so plentiful 
here then. 

One December myself and one of my boys went out 
on a hunt for bear. We traveled all day with our 
doofs but found no bears and started home late in the 
evening. 

Within two miles of home we jumped a deer and I 
shot it but only wounded it. My old start dog ran it 
over to White River. We had the other two dogs 
tied and with us. 

We started to follow the old dog and the deer but 
did not go very far until we struck a very large bear 
track in the snow. 

He had crossed the mountain and seemed to be 
traveling right on, and we stopped and studied a 
while hardly knowing what to do. I wanted to get 
the bear, so we untied the two dogs that we had with 
us and started them on the bear's track and we followed 
after them for about a mile before they came up with 
the bear. 

The dogs tried to fight him but he was too much 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 97 

for them and soon crippled them both so badly that we 
met them cominof back to us before we gfot close 
enough to to the bear to g^et a shot at it. 

The bear went on. It was then night and very 
cold and we were about eight miles from home. 

We made a fire bv a log and stayed there until 
morning and then went home. 

A few days afterward Uncle Alvah Jackson was 
out looking for bear and saw the large bear and an- 
other smaller one lying at the mouth of their den^ sun- 
ning themselves. 

The bears saw him and ran into their den. 

Uncle Alvah did not molest them then but came to 
my house. I went back with him, taking my dogs 
along, but when we got to the den we found that the 
bears had not been out but were still in there. 

We stopped up the den and both went home. 

After we got home Uncle Alvah told me that jhe 
could fix a match that would cause the bears to come 
right out of the den as soon as they got the scent of it. 

"All right; it is dangerous business going ito a den 
after them," says I, "how do you make the match ?" 

He said that he would take some rags and mix 
tallow , pepper and sulphur together aud saturate the 
rags with the mixture. This tied on the end of a pole 
if set on fire and pushed into the den would drive the 
bear out. 



98 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

"I think its a orood idea," said I. 

Uncle Alvah went home to prepare the mixture and 
we met at the den the next morning. 

We fired the match and pushed it in the cave and in 
a few minutes out came the large bear. 

As soon as he got a good smell of the rags he 
turned right around and went back into the den and 
died. We never got a shot at him. 

"Now what will we do," says Uncle Alvah. 

"I believe Cordell and Saylor will go in if you will 
give them half of the meat," said I. 

"Well," says he, "you get them," and we parted, 
agreeing to meet at the cave on a certain day. 

We went back to the den with Cordell and Saylor 
and fixed them a light. They went in and found the 
bear coiled up, and shot him in the head. He never 
moved. They came out, saying they were s ure he 
was dead when they found him. I could hardly be- 
lieve he was dead, but they showed me one of his 
ears they had cutoff. 

We dragged him out with a rope nnd skinned him, 
giving the men the skin. He smelt badly and had 
been dead for some time. He was the largest bear 
that I ever saw, and had he been fat would have 
weighed seven hundred pounds. He measured nine 
inches across the foot and eighteen inches lengthwise. 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 99 

which was as far back as he would break the snow in 
walking. 

The small bear was still in the den. We camped 
there all night to watch for him. There came up a 
rain storm and we moved back for shelter, under a 
cliff of rocks. Uncle Alvah waked me up, calling: 

"What's the matter with your dogs?" 

"It's the bear," said I, and so it was. 

The water was pouring down everywhere, and we 
could hear the creek just below roaring terribly. The 
dogs rushed down that way and I told C'ordell and Say- 
lor to go after them. The dogs had stopped at the 
creek, but the bear as we supposed, had swam across, 
and we lost him. 



WITH UNCLE ALVAH AGAIN. 

Some time afterwards Uncle Alvah and his son 
Thomas were hunting on Clifty when they found a she 
bear and two yearlings on the side of a mountain. 
They put the dogs out, but after they had chased the 
bears a little way they came back. 

"I don't like that," says Thomas. "I wouldn't 
hunt with such dogs, 

Thomas went home and Uncle Alvah came down 
after me. 

"We'll go after them," says I. "If my nogs was 
to do me as yours have done I would kill every dog- 



lOO LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

nabbed one of them, sure, that's what I'd do." 

The next morning we went there, and my dogs soon 
started an old she and two yearlings. Before they 
ran two hundred yards one of the yearlings ran up a 
tree. 

I ran on and tried to shoot the bear, but somehow 
my gun had got out of fix and wouldn't fire. I kept try- 
ing, but it would not go, so I sat down and took the 
lock off, fixing it the best I could. But it would not 
go. 

I got mad and holding up the gun I took sight at 
the bear and just kept pulling at the lock till it finally 
fired. I knocked the bear out and soon killed it with 
my knite. 

"Well, you have killed it," says Uncle Alvah, who 
just then came up. 

"Yes," says I. 

"Well, Gaskins, there are more of them. Put your 
dogs on the trail and we'll try to get another." 

"No," says I, "I am going home, and if one of m}- 
dogs even looks at a bear trail I ^^'ill take a club to 
him." 

"What's the matter!" . 

I told him my gun was out of fix and I didn't want 
to be out after bear without a good gun. He said he 
could fix it. He took it and soon had it all right. 

I was in a better humor and we went back where 



OF JOHN GASKINS. roi 

the dogs found the trail of the other two bears, and 
the second yearling was soon treed. 

I scared it out of the tree, and after the dogs had 
rolled it and fought it for awhile I killed it with my 
knife. 

As we were going back to where we had left the 
first one the dogs found the old she. We ran her 
about a mile but it grew too dark to shoot- and we 
went to the rock house to spend the night. 

As we were dressing the bears we had killed I was 
going to give the liver to my dogs, when Uncle Alvah 
said we should keep them ourselves. 

"Fm afraid they won't be good," says I. 

"You let me cook them," says he. 

He made forks out of spice wood brush, and put 
several slices on each fork, with the slices well salted 
and with small pieces of fat between them. He then 
put spice wood buds all through the liver, roasting it 
before the fire until it was nice and brown. While 
the liver was roasting he sli ced our bread and put it 
below so the grease would drip on it. When it was 
done I had the coffee made and we had supper. 

It was the best supper that I had ever eaten in 
camp. I never forgot it, for it was the last supper I 
ever had the privilege of eating with Uncle Alvah in 
camp- He did not live very long after that. He was 



102 IJFE AND ADVENTURES 

dn old pioneer and a good man who everybody loved 
that knew^ him. 

I was then left to hunt bears without his advice, but 
I kept on with my hunting as long as there were any 
bears left to kill. I believe I am about the only old 
pioneer bear hunter that is now left alive in this part 
of the country end I feel that I cannot be here much 
longer. I hope to go to rest when I am done here. 

I always believed that Unele Alvah Jackson went 
to rest when he died, and have often thought that a 
history of his early life here, giving his ups and 
downs, would have been a grand book and one worth 
reading, for our children and grand children know 
but little of how many hardships we old pioneers had 
to go through in the first settling of this country. 



OF JOHN GASKINS. lo^ 



CHAPTER X. 



A WILD CHASE. 



I used to hunt a great deal with Mart Tumlin. 

We struck a large bear track on CHfty one day and 
followed it until we came to a thicket, where the dogs 
jumped the bear and we followed them. We came to 
a high mountain where the dogs had turned back and 
the bear gone on. There were tracks in the snow 
plain to be seen. 

We could not imagine what that meant, but on go- 
ing a little farther we found where the bear had slid 
or fell over a bluff or precipice. He had fallen, any- 
how, a hundred feet. We could see in the snow 
where he had landed, but he was gone and so were 



I04 T^IFE AND ADV^EXTURES 

the dogs. We had to go a quarter of a mile to where 
we could get down, and had to climb down trees. We 
discovered that the bear had slid off to get away from 
dogs which had been pressing him too closely. The 
dogs had run around and followed him down, when 
the bear had climbed a large tree and went out on a 
limb and got on the mountain again, leaving the dogs 
down there. 

But my dogs were too smart to be foiled that w^ay, 
even if the bear had played a sharp trick on them, for 
as soon as they founa it out they went around on the 
mountain again and took up the trail. 

We had to climb back up again, and could then 
hear the dogs off to the left, baying the bear, at least 
a mile away. Mart was ahead, and when he got 
near the bear he raised his gun. 

"Don't shoot," says I. "I want to see the dogs 
fight him a while." 

. The bear was on a large white oak tree that was 
leaning. As soon as he saw^ Mart coming he started 
down. My old dog, when he heard me hollow, 
started up the tree and met the bear about fifteen feet 
from the ground and gi'abbed him l3y the nose. 

The dog pulled back and the bear pulled back, and 
they soon had the bear's nose stretched out about a 
foot. The bear whined and begged, but the dog held 
on. Every time they stopped pulling, I would cry: 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 105 

"Shake him, Bull; Dog nab him:" The dog would 
give a twist and pull and the bear would whine. Mart 
and 1 stood there enjoying the fun for some time, 
when I noticed the bear placing his feet on the tree. 
Then he raised one pa\^ and struck the dog on the 
head, knocking him twenty feet down the mountain. 

Then he went back up the tree and sat down, com- 
pletely whipped. He never even noticed us, but 
rubbed his nose, grumbling and whming all" the time. 

I told Mart to shoot, that the bear would never 
come down again. The bullet went through his 
brain and he died almost instantly. We had him, 
though he gave us an exciting chase. 



THE IRISHMAN AND THE BEAR. 

Early in the fallof either 1S70 or 187 1, two men 
named Baker were hunting deer and killed one. The}^ 
dressed it where they killed it, leaving the entrails on 
the ground. The next day, being Sunday, they were 
walking about with a little Irishman named Coffee, a 
machinest doing some work for a Mrs. Maasman. He 
hailed from St. Louis. 

The men found where the deer had been and sa w 
that the entrails had been dragged off. They followed 
finding a bear had dragged them into its den. 

Coffee got excited right away. -'Is the bear there 
now.^" says he. 



106 J.lFl': AND AD\ENTIRKS 

''Yes, he is; what shall we do ?" 

"Go and get Gasklns," says he. "He's the doctor, 
lle'll know what to do." 

He came to my house in a run. "Why didn't the 
Bakers kill the bear?" says I. "I told them not to do 
a thing till you got there," says he. 

I called up my dogs and we were soon there. 

"Is the bear right there?'' asked Coffee. 

"No, he's way back in the den," says Baker. 

"Then I've lied to Gaskins. I thought it w^as right 
out there. What are you going to do, Gaskins?" 

"Its not my ^ame," says I. "You fellows can go 
in if you want to." 

"We'll not go," says the Bakers. 

Coffee then says to me, "they told me yon conld 
go right in a den and feel all over ti bear and he 
wouldn't hurt you," 

"That's a mistake," says I. 

I told them to stop up the den and I would 11 nd 
somebody to go in. The next morning my son Sam 
and I took Cordell and wxnt to the den. Coffee was 
already there. Sam took a light and went in with 
Cordell. The bear got scared and started towards 
them. Cordell was in a tight place and had not much 
room to shoot, but he got his gun in the best position y 
he could and fired, hitting the bear in the mouth and 
breaking its jaw. Then they came out. A number 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 107 

of us were standing back from the mouth of the cave. 
Coffee v/as so scared that he did not look as if he had 
a drop of blood in his face, and could only talk in a 
whisper. After resting awhile Cordell got another 
gun and he and Sam. crawled back, and shot the bear 
three times, killing it. 

Coffee went wild with excitement. Said he would 
give fifty dollars for enough whiskey for a jubilee. 

After we got the bear out I sold Coffee the'skin and 
feet for five dollars, though he offered me ten. 

"Now," says I, "you can show the people in St. 
Louis the skin and feet and tell them what a terrible 
bear fight you had down here." 

"Gaskins," says he, "the people in St. Louis are 
not all damned fools." 

The bear weighed five hundred pounds. After 
Coffee got the skin and feet, he declared he wouldn't 
take twenty dollars for them, and I suppose if he is 
living he has never forgotten the killing of that bear 
in the m ountains of Arkansas. 



A BEAR CHASE. 
I was anxious for a bear chase, there being a heavy 
snow on the ground. I fold Thomas to do the feed- 
ing and I would take my gun and go up on the moun- 
tain and see if any bear had passed, and if I found 
tracks we would take the dogs and have a chase. 



io8 LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

I walked up the creek 'Aud on one of the mountains 
where Eureka Springs now is and stnick a large 
bear track. I went back home and got Thomas and 
the doors and vve went back to the tracks and started 
the dogs on the trail. 

In two miles we jumped the bear, which was a very 
large one. The dogs ran it on to Kings river. 'J hen 
it turned and came right back across the mountains 
and gulches. We followed them and sometimes we 
were out of hearing, They finally came to the hollow 
which is now Main street of Eureka Springs, and the 
bear went up a large pine tree just below where the 
Southern hotel now^ stands. When we got in sight 
the bear was walking about on the limbs, growling 
and teasing the dogs, which were all tired out and 
ready to give up. We hollowed to them to stay with 
him, and at the sound of the voice every dog jumped 
to the tree and began to yell as loud as he could. 

By the time we got to the Basin spring the bear saw 
us and started down. 

"Shoot him, pap, shoot him," says Thomas. 

"I'll have to rest before I can shoot. Tommy." I 
was out of wind. ' 

The bear came down amouo' the dogs and they soon 
all had hold of him. He shook them off and ran a few 
steps and then went up another tree. I stood near 
the Basin spring and shot him, knocking him out of 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 109 

the tree. The dogs jumped on to it and I stabbed 
him with my knife. I made a fire in the Alvah cave, 
above the basin, and we drago^ed the bear there and 
roasted his liver for our supper, enjoying it very much 
after our long day's chase. We had w^alked and run 
eight miles. Next morning we went home and hunted 
no more that winter. 



WOLVES AND PUPPIES. ' 

One evening about the Last of May, my brother-in- 
law Scott told me to go to Uncle Alvah 's and get my 
mares and colts from the range, for the wolves were 
bad, and had been killing Uncle Alvah's sheep anil 
would kill my colts. 

''Why don't Uncle Alvah kill the wolves.?" said I. 

"He can't find them," says Scott. 

"Well, I'll kill them and not bring in my colts." 

"Yes, I know that you will kill them," says Scott, 
"but you had better bring in your mares and colts." 

I told him no, but I really intended to go after 
them. I liked to tease Scott. 

Next morning I started with my gun and two dogs 
— my start dog and old Sharp, who w\as blind in one 
eye. After I had gone about a mile I killed a turkey 
and hung it upon a tree. About a mil'e tarther old 
Sharp had gone over into another hollow, but Bull, 
the start dog,was with me. 



no LIFE AND ADVENTURES 

Suddenly I heard a terrible CTi'^wl behind me and 
looked back to see old Sharp and two large wolves 
snapping at each other. I called old ]3iill and he 
wheeled around and saw old Shaip and the wolves, 
and made for them. He run right against old Sharp's 
blind side and scared him so bad that he jumped over 
the wolves and ran away, clear out of siglit, leaving 
old Bull w^ith the wolves to fight it out. They were 
too much for him and he started to me, and the 
w^olves snapping after him. This made him so mad 
th:it he turned again and began to fight them. I ran 
up to shoot, but the wolves saw me and ran away. 
Bull followed them into the hollow and soon begun 
to bay, but before I got far I met him coming back 
with the old gray wolf right after him. 

As he passed I stepped back to shoot, but he threw 
up his head and the bullet went through his breast. 
He rolled down the hill, yelling and whining terribly. 
I told Bull to go after him and soon heard him bark- 
ing in the hollow. I started on and old Sharp came 
by me. 

"Dog-nab you, go and help Bull," says I. 

He ran on and caught the wolf by the jaw, and 
they both went over full length. Bull jumped in but 
the wolf caught him by the nose and made him yell. 
I could see no chance to shoot, so I plunged my knife 
through the wolf, nearly breaking the point in the 



OF JOHN GASKINS. rir 

g-ravcl, an d ihc wolf was soon dead as he could be, 

1 skinned him and threw the skin on a tree, scndin<j 
the dog^s on to hunt up the others. We found the den 
about a half a mile on under a ledge of rocks. 

I stooped down and looked in and could see the 
shining eyes, and thought it w^as an old she wolf wnth 
her puppies. 

I lay down, trying to get a shot, but the noise made 
the little puppies come out. Such prettv little things 
they were; I touched one and they all dartea back 
into the hole. 

I stopped up the den and hung my vest up in front 
of it to scare the old she away, and then went back 
home. 

Next morning myself and boys and all the dogs 
went back and found the den had not been molested. 
We made a. circuit, hoping to find the old she, but 
failed. 

One of the bo3^s crawled in ai d got four puppies 
and we took them home. I killed two and kept one, 
giving John Scott the other. The boys tried to train 
the one we kept, but could never teach it to be any- 
thing else than a wolf. Before it was half grown it 
was killing chickens and ducks and Scott's w^as the 
same way, and had to be killed. But I had the five 
scalps and thfe county paid me ten dollars for them, 
and I did not have to take my mares off the range. 



113 LIFE ANO ADN'^NTURES 

SQUIRE FARLEY'S FIRST BEAR. 
About the twentieth of November 1873, just as the 
sun was rismg-, Squire Farley went deer hunting on 
Lealherwood creek. He was a very lucky man with 
deer and small game, but had never killed a bear. 
On this morning, as he went up Sugar Camp moun- 
tain, all at once his attention was attracted to three 
l^ears in the bushes, eating acorns. He raised his 
gun to fire at the largest, but noticed that his gun was 
not steady and took it down agani. The bears had 
not noticed him. 

"It will never do to have the buck ague at this 
stage of the game," he said to himself. 

And raising his gun he fired at the largest bear, the 
bidlet taking effect behind the shoulder and knocking 
the bear down. 

It rolled down the mountain right towards him, and 
the other two, which proved to be cubs, followed. Mr. 
Farley thought he was going to have to fight in close 
quarters, but the bear rolled against a log, raised up 
on her hind feet and fell over dead, with the cubs, 
standing beside her. 

He loaded his gun, thinking he would get another 
shot, but the cubs escaped in the brush. Mr. Farley 
went home after his sled and sent for me. 

When we got started, there were seven of us in all 
the party and nine dogs, and we struck the trail of two 



OF JOHN GASKINS. 1,3 

cubs within a mile, and soon routed them out of the 
brush and vines. The cubs separated. One came 
towards me, and when it was within fifty yards I shot 
it through the heart, killing it instantly. The other 
stopped about a half a mile away and began to box 
the dogs right and left. 

I saw it would be impossible to shoot, for there 
were so many dogs, so I handed Mr. Farley my gun 
and told the boys we would have to kill the fellow 
with our knives. 

He was standing on his feet with his mouth open, 
slapping at the dogs, which were thick all around. 
My son Sam was stout and not afraid of bear, so I 
told him to do the killing. He went up and while the 
bear was turning he plunged the knife into its neck, 
killing it. 

We took the bears to Mr. Farley's and divided up 
the meat and had a great feast. After which we spun 
a few good yarns and went home, leaving Squire 
Farley rejoicing over his first bear hunt. 



THE END. 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 



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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 





014 610 290 6 



